Daniel Cormier got every single UFC prediction wrong for 2024 including Conor McGregor and Jon Jones fights
12/29/2024 11:59 AM
We're a few days away from bidding farewell to another fabulous year of MMA action, which means it's time to have a look back at what went down in the octagon over the past 12 months.
That includes recapping all the predictions that were made on the backend of 2023, and for former double champion Daniel Cormier; it's been a year of picks that he'd rather we all forget about.
UFC legend Daniel Cormier laughs off an awful year of predictions
Daniel Cormier might be one of the best fighters and commentators in MMA history, but if there's one thing that DC struggles with: it's making accurate predictions.
MMA fans got a late Christmas present this week, a 13-minute reunion of the DC&RC Show, with Ryan Clark re-joining his former co-host for a humorous recap of their predictions from last year.
"Dude, a staple of our show was making horrible predictions," stated Cormier: "Bro, literally, we were the worst at predictions.
"Last year we did 'fights we wanted to see' and I said Jones vs Miocic – which we got. McGregor vs Chandler – they're talking about fighting again. And then I said the Jones vs Miocic winner vs Tom Aspinall – and that might [still] happen.
"I said that my male fighter of the year was going to be Tom Aspinall – wrong. I said my female fighter of the year was going to be Erin Blanchfield – double wrong. And I said that my new champion by December would be Shavkat [Rakhmonov]… I was horrible, as I always was."
To be fair, those three predictions weren't exactly bad ones; Blanchfield might have fallen short to Manon Fiorot, but Tom Aspinall did retain his interim title, and Rakhmonov could have achieved champ status had it not been for a last-minute injury for UFC 310.
Clark didn't get many more predictions right either, with Cormier giggling as he went through RC's picks from late 2023.
"Your fights to see; Jones vs Aspinall – wrong. O'Malley vs Merab – you actually got that. Pantoja vs Moreno 3 [didn't happen]. You said your fighter of the year was [going to be] Sean O'Malley – wrong. Female fighter of the year was Zhang Weili – which could still be.
"Then your new champion by December was Jamahal Hill" – it was certainly a tough year for 'Sweatdreams', who returns to action on January 18 at UFC 311 against former champion Jiri Prochazka.
Ryan Clark left DC&RC last February and signed off with one final warning about the nature of these types of prediction shows.
"You can't pick based on people that you like; you can't do that – that's not how this fight game works. I like Jamahal, I hung out with him a little bit, he was fun and then this happens.
"But isn't that what's great about the fight game? Like you actually can't predict it."
That's true, no matter what your predictions were this time last year, it'd be nigh on impossible to get every single one of them right considering the often chaotic nature of MMA – maybe next year?
