A soon to be fighting Cormier last competed at UFC 230 this last November, but the champion recently revealed that he had back surgery this past December.
“The reason I haven’t fought, and the reason I didn’t fight in March, was because I had back surgery in December. When I was about to fight Derrick Lewis, and I was telling you guys all how I sneezed and how my back was so jacked I didn’t know what was going on. It was so bad that about a week later – two weeks later, I started having pain going down my hip. So I was like, ‘Yo, what’s going on with my hip?’ And I would travel, then right around Christmas, I went to Milwaukee for that last Fox show because I was like, ‘I have to do it, last time I’m gonna work for Fox’. Even though my hip was bothering me,” says Cormier on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (via Drake Riggs of BJPenn.com).
Cormier has hinted at retirement in the past, but the March date he originally proposed has already passed by.
Cormier also admits that fighting Derrick Lewis at UFC 230 was likely a mistake in the end, despite winning on that night.
“And then Cain [Velasquez] was gonna fight [Francis] Ngannou and I went in to try and help him, and I mean, I barely did anything. My back was bothering me so bad, the next morning I couldn’t even walk. I had a disc that was bulging out of my back and sitting on my sciatic nerve. It was out two inches of the chamber that holds the disc in. Two inches the disc was out - I couldn’t even walk. Deron Winn actually had to carry me out of my house and into my truck to take me all around to see doctors because my wife was having to deal with my children. It was bad. I would have fought in March if I was healthy. I probably really shouldn’t have fought Derrick Lewis,” says Cormier.
UFC 241 takes place on Saturday, August 17 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California with Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
