Daniel Cormier Has Plan to Make Americans UFC Champions Again

Daniel
Cormier believes that a particular type of combat sport athlete
can reclaim America’s glory in the
UFC. 

Cormier (22-3) recently noted that most UFC champions are from
Eastern Europe with a wrestling base, with the exception of a few
strikers. However, Cormier believes American wrestlers are not
opening up to mixed martial arts. Cormier shares a close tie with
the current welterweight champion, Islam
Makhachev, and former lightweight champ Khabib
Nurmagomedov, who exemplify the dominance of wrestling in MMA.
While Cormier loves Makhachev, Nurmagomedov, and the rest of the
Dagestani brigade, he wants to see American champions in the UFC.
The former Olympian claims he has set a plan in motion to bring
more American wrestlers to MMA.

American Wrestlers Wanted

“The American wrestler isn’t as open to fighting as we need them to
be,” Cormier told Y’all Street TV. “But I have a plan. I’m getting
American wrestlers into fighting. I love those guys. I love Khabib,
I love Islam. Those guys are the best. But I want American
wrestlers as champions. I think that’s the only group of people to
go and get it back. It’s gonna be the American wrestlers. It’s the
Eastern European wrestler that’s the champion — very few strikers,
they’re wrestlers who are champions. We’ve got to get our wrestlers
going back into the sport of mixed martial arts.”

The U.S. is considered to have an advantage in MMA because the
sport was brought to the limelight here by the UFC. The UFC was
previously filled with American champions like Cormier, Jon Jones,
B.J.
Penn, Dan
Henderson, Cain
Velasquez, Luke
Rockhold, Chris
Weidman and others, who all hail from a wrestling background.
However, there is currently no male U.S.-born champion in the
UFC.