Daniel Cormier

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Daniel Cormier is a American mixed martial artist from Lafayette, Louisiana, U.S.. He currently competes as a Light Heavyweight & Heavyweight in the UFC. He is the current UFC Light Heavyweight Champion.

## Background

Cormier was raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. Cormier is the son of Joseph and Audrey Cormier. He has an older brother named Joseph, a sister named Felicia, and a younger brother named Ferral. When Cormier was seven, his father was shot and killed on Thanksgiving Day in 1986 by the father of his second wife.

In high school at Northside High, Cormier won 3 Louisiana state championships in wrestling. After 9th grade Cormier only lost twice, both times by injury default. His final high school record was 101–9, with 89 of his victories coming by a fall. He was twice voted the most outstanding wrestler of the state tournament. In 1995, Cormier won a bronze medal in the world championships in Greco-Roman Wrestling cadet (15–16 years old) division. He was also an all-state football player at high school in the linebacker position, and had a personal best time of 4.5 seconds in the 40 yard dash. Cormier was offered a scholarship to play football at LSU, but declined in order to continue to pursue wrestling.

After high school, he attended Colby Community College in Kansas, where he was a two-time junior college national champion at 197 pounds, in 1998 and 1999. His record was 61–0, with 33 falls. After Colby, Cormier transferred to Division I Oklahoma State University. In 2000, Cormier went 26–5. He entered the national tournament as the #3 seed at 184 pounds, but fell one match short of becoming an all-American (given to the top 8 finishers in each weight class). In 2001, Cormier went 27–5. He became an all-American by reaching the finals of the 184 pound weight class, in which he lost to Cael Sanderson 8–4. His final record was 53–10, with 27 falls. 6 of Cormier's losses were to Cael Sanderson.

After graduating from OSU with a degree in sociology, Cormier went on to have a successful career in Freestyle Wrestling. He was the senior U.S. national champion every year from 2003–2008, and represented team USA at the world level for each of those years. He competed at 96 kg, or 211.6 lbs. At the 2004 Olympics, he came 4th after losing to Khadzhimurat Gatsalov in the semifinals. Cormier was also a member of the 2008 Olympic wrestling team for the USA, where he was named team captain, but was pulled from competition due to kidney failure, brought on by excessive weight cutting.

In the non-Olympic years, Cormier reached the top 5 at the Wrestling World Championships in 2003 and 2007. He won a bronze medal at the 2007 competition. Cormier also won a gold medal at the quadrennial Pan American Games in 2003. Another major accomplishment came in 2005, when Cormier became one of a select few Americans to win a gold medal at the Golden Grand-Prix Ivan Yarygin, held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, and considered by many to be the most challenging wrestling tournament in the world.

Cormier also competed and represented the Oklahoma Slam team in the now-defunct Real Pro Wrestling league. He was crowned a champion in its first and only season in 2004, for the 211 lb weight class. While he competed in Real Pro Wrestling, he was teammates with fellow Strikeforce mixed martial arts competitor Muhammed Lawal, who also was a season 1 champion, in the 184 lb weight class.

Cormier is the head wrestling coach at Gilroy High School, having been appointed in the summer of 2018.

## Championships and accomplishments

* UFC Light Heavyweight championship (Two times, Current)
* Performance of the Night KO (One time)  vs. Gökhan Saki

## MMA record

 **By submission** | 6
 **By decision** | 1
 **Draws** | 0