UFC 252 Full Fight Video: Watch Daniel Cormier Knock Out Stipe Miocic In First Meeting

Stipe Miocic won the UFC heavyweight title on May 14, 2016, with a first-round knockout of Fabricio Werdum. Miocic’s first two title defenses ended in the same manner as he stopped Alistair Overeem and Junior dos Santos in the first stanza. Hanging over Miocic’s head when he stepped into the octagon against Francis Ngannou in January 2018 was the fact that no other UFC heavyweight champion had ever successfully defended the title three times in a row. Miocic and Ngannou went the distance with Miocic winning the bout via a one-sided decision. With that, he earned a spot in the UFC heavyweight record book.

In July 2018, the UFC matched Miocic against UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier in the main event of UFC 226. Cormier was coming off a January title defense knockout win over Volkan Oezdemir.

The odds on fight night favored the defending heavyweight champion. Miocic came in as a -235 favorite over Cormier, who was the +185 underdog.

One of Cormier’s goals was to overcome the height and reach issue he faced by closing distance and working from the clinch. Cormier grabbed the back of Miocic’s head and threw a few uppercuts early while Miocic looked to use his boxing skills to keep his opponent at distance. Miocic also used combinations when he had the opportunity, while Cormier seemed happy just to land counter jabs.

With 90 seconds left in the first stanza, Cormier landed a combination that backed up Miocic. A few seconds later, Goddard paused the fight after Cormier caught Miocic with an eye poke. Miocic did not take much time to recover from the foul.

With a little over 30 seconds left in the round, the two fighters clinched in the center of the octagon. When they separated, Cormier caught Miocic with a short right that dropped the heavyweight kingpin to the mat. Sensing the fight was in his hands, Cormier quickly blasted the stunned Miocic with several strikes before Goddard rushed in and waved off the battle at the 4:33 mark of the first stanza.

Cormier defended his title against Derek Lewis, but lost to Miocic by fourth-round knockout when they fought again in August 2019. Neither man has competed since that contest. On Saturday, Miocic and Cormier meet for the third time when they headline the UFC 252 pay-per-view card.

Before that fight takes place, watch Cormier knock out Miocic in their first scrap.

UFC 252 takes place Saturday at UC Apex in Las Vegas. The main card streams on ESPN+ pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+.