By Cassandra Cousineau of LVSportsBiz.com
Saturday night’s UFC 276 fight card inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas was headlined by middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and stacked with great fighters.
But UFC’s fight week in Las Vegas belonged to Daniel Cormier — a man who has evolved from wearing gold in two divisions to becoming a MVP on the broadcast business side of the Las Vegas-based MMA promotion.
In May, UFC announced Cormier would be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame class of 2022. The promotion made good on that declaration during its annual International Fight Week.
Cormier is an animated guy. He sits cageside, swaying, lunging forward, and clutching the broadcast table incredulously at times.
His movements are mostly big, loud declarations in reaction to what’s happening in front of him only a few feet away. Yet, amid 17,272 fight fans in Arizona, cameras captured perhaps the most intimate public moment of the former UFC champion’s career.
Cormier’s migration to the broadcaster’s table is not a new blueprint as former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping and several others have also ascended to the commentator desk.
But the difference between Cormier and his colleagues is the wrap-around-coverage he provides for UFC. Their partnership is like catching lightning in a bottle. Nothing similar could really exist in another sports league due to the streaming platform alliance with ESPN and UFC’s prolific and noted in-house production content.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, UFC’s Apex building made it possible for the UFC to flourish while most of the world was shut down during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
The restriction on fan attendance magnified every word of the broadcast team during TV telecasts. Fighters constantly mentioned being able to hear Cormier’s booming voice over those of their own corner people. Along with the limited number of sporting event choices for viewers in 2020, the move to the smaller Apex venue significantly elevated Cormier’s profile. Keep in mind that the former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion was still an active fighter as the final loss of his illustrious career came in the Apex in Aug. 2020.
“We were the only show in town in Jacksonville. My profile was raised tenfold because there were no sports going on in the world. So it allows me to stay visible when I’m not even fighting and it’s been great,” Cormier told LVSportsbiz.com when we asked him about how his work as a commentator has impacted his value as a fighter.
It helps to build you as a fighter, it just helps you overall. So, me being at the commentary desk for all the biggest fights, that’s massive for me in terms of recognition. — Daniel Cormier, UFC former fighter-turned-broadcaster
After Cormier’s previous show, which was called, “DC & Helwani”, ended when MMA broadcaster Ariel Helwani departed ESPN, DC & RC debuted. It’s broadcast on ESPN+ and on ESPN’s YouTube channel. “DC & RC” features Cormier and former Super Bowl champion Ryan Clark, both Louisiana natives, chopping it up about MMA and the rest of the sports world.
Cormier has built a lucrative career for himself. Despite being the title challenger and losing, Cormier told Helwani on their former show that UFC paid him a million dollars under the table after he lost to Jon Jones in their first meeting at UFC 182
“After I lost to Jones, Lorenzo Ferttita gave me a million dollars. Him and Dana gave me a million dollars. They actually called me and said, ‘We’re going to give you a million dollars, DC, for the job that you’ve done’. So when people say, ‘Daniel Cormier made $80,000 to fight Jon Jones,’ no they gave me a million dollars. I didn’t get pay-per-view.”
When Cormier defeated Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson to claim the light heavyweight title, the UFC topped off his PPV buy-rate with another bonus under the table:
“I was becoming the UFC Champion. And you know what happened after I beat [Anthony] Rumble Johnson? I won the belt and I got $300,000 for the PPV [buys] and you know what they did after that? They gave me $400,000 to make sure that I made a million dollars.”
Prior to the commentator gig, he was already earning a ton of money. Cormier’s biggest payout of $2,290,000 came in July 2017 when he met Jones in UFC 214. The second act for the 43-year-old has been mutually beneficial for both the former fighter and his former employer.
In addition to Cormier and Khabib Nurmagomedov entering the UFC Hall, the UFC inducted a featherweight bout between Cub Swanson (28-12) and Dooho Choi (14-4) from 2016 into the Fight Wing of its Hall of Fame. It also recognized active featherweights Max Holloway and Giga Chikadze as two of its Forrest Griffin Community Award recipients.