Daniel Cormier sees a massive discrepancy between the top of heavyweight and the rest of the ranked fighters.
Outside of UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) and former interim champ Ciryl Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC), Cormier isn’t sure the rest of the division is championship level.
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“Heavyweight is struggling right now,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “I love the big boys, but it feels like when you look at the heavyweight division, the best guys are clearly guys the best guys. Tai Tuivasa is one of my buddies. He fought (at UFC 325) in Australia. It was a bad fight. Him and (Tallison Teixeira) got so fatigued, they looked like they weren’t ready to fight. They didn’t look as skilled as we have seen fighters look recently.
“So what you really need is the best guys fighting to kind of wipe the bad performances out because guess what? Derrick Lewis’ last fight in Las Vegas, that wasn’t good. It just was not good. Waldo Cortes-Acosta, again, he got beat. He’s good, but he’s lost fights. It’s just not in a great place. Would you say if you put Waldo Cortes-Acosta in there with Ciryl Gane or Tom Aspinall, he’d be competitive?”
Former champion Jon Jones’ status is unknown after he opted to vacate his belt, and Aspinall is now sidelined after undergoing double eye surgery – an injury that stemmed from his no contest against Gane at UFC 321.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Daniel Cormier: Current state of UFC heavyweights is concerning
