Dana White: Both Cormier, Miocic Got Poked, Can’t Be Used As Excuse

UFC president Dana White believes the controversial eye poke can’t be used as an excuse for Daniel Cormier’s defeat to Stipe Miocic.

Cormier suffered a unanimous decision defeat to Miocic in their heavyweight title trilogy match in the main event of UFC 252 on Saturday night.

Both fighters hurt each other throughout the contest, but the defining moment undoubtedly come towards the end of the third round where Miocic accidentally eye poked Cormier.

Cormier — who had already hurt his left eye at that point — claimed he couldn’t see out of it as he fought the remainder of the fight compromised. And given that he will now be retiring on a loss, White can see “DC” sticking around for one more fight.

“I just think Cormier, the way that guy is, the competitor that he is — he says, ‘I’m not going out like that.’ I don’t know, that’s my prediction,” White said at the post-fight press conference.

White: Cormier Can’t Use Eye Poke As Excuse

The eye poke would certainly be a major reason as to why Cormier would potentially fight again as he will feel he didn’t get to go out at 100 percent.

That said, the former champion also eye poked Miocic in the first round as well as their previous two fights — the latter of which led to Miocic requiring surgery.

For those reasons, White believes the eye poke Cormier received cannot be used as an excuse for his defeat.

“Yeah, maybe [Cormier would use the eye poke as a reason to fight again] but listen, you can’t look at the eye poke and take that away,” White added. “There were two eye pokes, they both got poked in the eye.

“And Cormier, that eye was hurt before the poke. We got a big group text that goes on and I was like there’s something wrong with Cormier’s eye and he got poked after that. That didn’t help. But they both got poked — you can’t use that as an excuse.”

Do you agree with White?