Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic lost the gold to Daniel Cormier this past July in the main event of UFC 226.
Miocic has since spoken out and says he has been disrespected by the UFC, but UFC President Dana White doesn’t understand why the former champion feels this way.
“I don’t know why Stipe always feels like we’re disrespecting him, which we’re not,” White said on UFC Unfiltered. “We have a lot of respect for Stipe. I think he feels like it took him a very long time to get his title shot and he felt like it took longer than it should have. Every time I turn around, he feels disrespected. He’s anything but disrespected. Complete opposite. I don’t know.”
The main point of disrespect in Miocic’s mind is that fact that former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar confronted DC in the Octagon after their bout, leading to a future meeting between the two next year.
White says that Miocic would’ve gotten the fight with Lesnar if he had beaten DC, but things didn’t work out that way.
“Obviously you saw that we set up the fight with Cormier to fight Brock. That would have Stipe, if Stipe won the fight. It’s no disrespect to Stipe, it’s just something that was in place before that fight even happened,” says White.
DC even spoke out against Miocic for criticizing the potential Lesnar bout, saying that Miocic may wind up getting an immediate rematch is Lesnar is unable to fight him.
