Daniel Cormier admits he contemplated comeback fight against Jan Blachowicz

Former two-division UFC champion Daniel Cormier says he briefly contemplated mounting a comeback to fight new light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz.

Cormier, who previously ruled over the light heavyweight and heavyweight divisions, retired after a decision loss to the reigning heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic back in August.

Several months later, Blachowicz knocked out Dominick Reyes to capture the promotion’s light heavyweight title. After winning that belt, the Polish knockout artist issued a prompt callout of Cormier—though the pair quickly resolved that the fight would not be happening.

While it’s clear that Cormier won’t be returning to the Octagon to fight Blachowicz, he admits he briefly considered the possibility.

“I’ve got to be honest. When Jan Blachowicz was like ‘hey, you want to disrespect me, get off the couch and come fight me.’ And I think to myself maybe I’ll go fight Jan Blachowicz,” Cormier told MMA Fighting last week. “I’ll go fight him and get this done and then I can walk away.

“That lasted about 15 minutes and then I completely understood that I was completely done.”

Cormier continued, explaining the allure of a potential fight with Blachowicz, and how he ultimately decided to forgo this matchup.

“Obviously every great fighter feels they can win,” Cormier explained. “I was like ‘maybe I’ll go fight Jan Blachowicz’ cause there seems to be a path for that. When I left 205, I just kind of left. I vacated the title and now that this new champion is there with not that many big name fights on the horizon.

“Now he does now that he has Izzy (Israel Adesanya) but at the time he didn’t,” Cormier added. “It was either going to be Glover Teixeira or Thiago Santos. Well, if you’re looking at a Jan vs. Glover or Thiago, that’s a great fight but if you’re looking at a Jan Blachowicz vs. DC, that’s a bigger fight. It’s like oh my goodness this could be an opportunity.

“I thought about that for like 15 minutes and then I was like you know what? I’m good. The thought of going down to 205 [pounds] and all this other stuff. Yeah, I think I’m fine. That was it.”

Do you think Daniel Cormier made the right decision?