{"id":162414,"date":"2025-09-22T22:58:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T22:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/162414\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T22:58:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T22:58:03","slug":"daniel-cormier-blames-teammate-for-controversial-towel-incident-ahead-of-one-of-his-legendary-title-fights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/162414\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Cormier blames teammate for controversial &#8216;towel incident&#8217; ahead of one of his legendary title fights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier shared never-before-shared details surrounding the most controversial moment of his legendary career.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of one of his light heavyweight title defenses at UFC 210, Daniel Cormier was at the center of one of MMA\u2019s biggest controversies at the official weigh-in. Cormier was set to rematch Anthony \u2018Rumble\u2019 Johnson in Buffalo amid Jon Jones\u2019s suspension.<\/p>\n<p>Cormier weighed in at 206.2 pounds in his first attempt, looking dejected and defeated on the scale. But just minutes later, Cormier returned to the scale with minutes left to weigh in, making the 205-pound limit while appearing to grab a towel held by commission officials to lessen his recorded weight.<\/p>\n<p>The moment stirred up lots of controversy in the weeks following the fight, which ended up going in Cormier\u2019s favor by stoppage. Years later, at his UFC Hall of Fame induction, Cormier <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/ufc\/chael-sonnen-reacts-after-daniel-cormier-admits-to-towelgate-during-his-ufc-hall-of-fame-speech-cheated-but-did-not-have-the-courage-to-use-a-needle\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">admitted he grabbed the weigh-in towel<\/a> in an attempt to successfully make championship weight.<\/p>\n<p>But according to Cormier, one of his star teammates is to blame for the incident.<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Cormier reveals new details surrounding controversial \u2018towel\u2019 weigh-in<\/p>\n<p>In a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/I2RXx3x8LIA?si=3CcxFRKPogLD4ZI7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">sitdown<\/a> with former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling, Cormier explained the backstory behind the hotly debated weigh-in incident.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy nutritionist went, \u2018You can grab the towel, \u2018\u201d Cormier said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd guess whose fault it was? Luke Rockhold! I\u2019m at Buffalo University running, and I\u2019m out in front of this shed, these shed doors. It was so cold. So I had this draft coming in as I\u2019m on the treadmill. I\u2019m losing the weight, it\u2019s coming off, but it\u2019s harder. I\u2019m five pounds over, and I told Luke Rockhold, I should probably get two more pounds off before I leave. Luke had a girl lined up, and he wants nothing more than to leave the gym. So he convinces me, and it\u2019s not hard, because I\u2019m feeling how I\u2019m feeling and I want someone to tell me to go. And everyone\u2019s saying you have to lose more weight, and Luke goes \u2018He\u2019s fine, let him go!\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI listened to that moron and I left! That\u2019s what happened,\u201d Cormier continued. \u201cI hope whoever it was, was worth it to Luke, because I had to have the most embarrassing moment of my career [LAUGHS].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cormier and Luke Rockhold were longtime teammates at American Kickboxing Academy in California. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjpenn.com\/mma-news\/luke-rockhold\/luke-rockhold-decision-boxing-mma-future\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rockhold recently announced his retirement<\/a> from combat sports after a boxing loss to Darren Till.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier shared never-before-shared details surrounding the most controversial moment of his legendary career.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[28097,84278,49,48,4226,641,638,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-162414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-aljamain-sterling","9":"tag-anthony-rumble-johnson","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-daniel-cormier","13":"tag-fighting","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}