Daniel Cormier has unsurprisingly named Anthony Johnson as one of the hardest-hitting opponents he fought during his legendary career.
Cormier is one of the few fighters who can claim to have achieved double-championship status in the UFC.
‘DC’ entered the UFC having been crowned heavyweight champion under the Strikeforce banner, breaking his right hand in the title fight.
He was victorious against Frank Mir in his UFC debut before beating Roy Nelson, Patrick Cummins and Dan Henderson.
The 45-year-old suffered just three UFC defeats during a career that saw him take shots from Jon Jones, Alexander Gustafsson, Anderson Silva, Stipe Miocic and several other heavy-hitting legends.
His rivalry with Jones was also one of the most intense Dana White’s promotion has ever seen as the pair battled it out on two occasions.
Cormier was knocked out twice in his career: the first came against Jones, though the result was later overturned to a no-contest after Jones tested positive for performance enhancing drugs; the second in his penultimate UFC bout against Miocic.
However, one punch from ‘Rumble’ significantly stood out from the rest.
“The first 15 fights, I was cruising. Nobody was really doing nothing to me,” Cormier told Clean Combat, speaking on his early UFC career.
“When I was fighting Anthony Johnson for the belt. 20 seconds into the fight, I kick his leg and then poke him in the eye.
“That was an accident, but I accidentally poked him in the eye. He came back, he hit me and I flew all the way across the octagon.
“I hit the ground on my stomach. I was like holy s*** I’m on my stomach. You feel it right away, man, that first jab–boom. It’s like: ‘wow.’”
Cormier claimed UFC gold for the first time against Johnson, after recovering from a devastating right hand that sent him flying.
Johnson put Cormier, who is around 17 stone, straight on his stomach with a brutal overhand right in the first 30 seconds of their five-round fight that left ‘DC’ scrambling to his feet at UFC 187 in May 2015.
Cormier turned the fight around in the subsequent rounds, controlling Johnson on the ground and eventually made him submit to a rear naked choke.
He proceeded to defend the belt against Gustafsson before beating Silva and Johnson again in the pair’s 2017 rematch at UFC 210.
‘DC’ was then head kicked by Jones, and went on to win three of his final bouts in the UFC, which ended with consecutive losses to Miocic.
Johnson was one of the UFC’s deadliest fighters and beat the likes of Dan Hardy and Glover Teixeira in between his two fights with Cormier.
‘Rumble’ sadly passed away at the age of 38 in November 2022 after suffering from an undisclosed illness.
“Anthony Johnson—RIP my brother AJ—would’ve been a massive star,” former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman once said on a podcast with Cormier.
“You saw what Anthony Johnson was doing to guys, kicking dudes heads off and punching dudes teeth out in the fight.
“But AJ never wanted to talk (trash).”
Cormier responded, speaking on the pair’s two UFC bouts: “I fought him twice. I would try to goad him to try and mess with me.
“I put the belt behind and pulled it away, he’s like: ‘Oh my God, he’s so annoying.’ He was literally on ESPN going: ‘This dude is so annoying, can I be done with him?’
“But boy he could punch, he could punch. You fight, boom, I fell, I was like: ‘Oh my god, I’m on the ground.”
Cormier was one of the many UFC stars from around the world who paid tribute to Johnson following his death.
He referred to him as a ‘caring’ person, who he was able to share ‘random text’ messages with.
