Stipe Miocic explains how Anderson Silva helped him beat Daniel Cormier

Stipe Miocic is once again the heavyweight champion of the world. In the main event of UFC 241, the Cleveland native TKO’d Daniel Cormier to reclaim the title.

However, after the first three rounds, it did not appear Stipe Miocic would win the fight. In fact, some pundits claim he was “dominated” by Cormier.

Miocic was definitely getting outpointed in the first fifteen minutes and many had him down three-rounds to none.

For Miocic, he knew he was fighting terrible and had to make an adjustment to win the fight.

“It was terrible (the beginning of the fight), my God. It seemed that I could not fight,” Miocic said to Combate (as translated by Google Translate). “I thought, ‘should I be here? Then I started to open more, found the distance and began to see openings. Okay, we’re fine, I get it now”

Why he and his corner decided to start attacking the body was simple. When they were watching past fights from Cormier, they looked closely at the UFC 200 scrap against Anderson Silva. There, Stipe Miocic says they realized ‘DC’ does not handle body shots well.

“In the third round (I decided to change my strategy). I started to see it between the third and fourth rounds. My coaches were talking to me and I said ‘let’s attack his body’. He leaves it really open and nobody takes advantage of it,” he explained. “I remember Anderson Silva hit him with a body kick and that hurt him a little bit, so I thought of attacking him there, and it worked.”

Ultimately, the body shots ended up being the difference as it helped lower the hands which set up the TKO win for Stipe Miocic. Without the Silva fight footage, who knows if the current champ would have utilized that same adjustment.

Regardless, Anderson Silva’s previous fight against Daniel Cormier helped propel Stipe Miocic to victory at UFC 241.

Do you think the UFC should book a trilogy bout between ‘DC’ and Miocic? Sound off in the comment section, PENN Nation!

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 8/20/2019.