{"id":37066,"date":"2026-03-01T19:31:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T19:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Daniel-Cormier-congratulates-UFC-Mexico-debutant-midinterview-200298"},"modified":"2026-03-01T19:31:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T19:31:51","slug":"daniel-cormier-congratulates-ufc-mexico-debutant-mid-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/daniel-cormier-congratulates-ufc-mexico-debutant-mid-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Cormier congratulates UFC Mexico debutant mid-interview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

Daniel
\nCormier<\/a> called up his protege mid-interview after a successful
\nUFC debut. <\/p>\n

Cormier student Imanol
\nRodriguez<\/a> (7-0) made his
\nUFC<\/a> debut in a flyweight booking against Kevin
\nBorjas<\/a> (10-5) at
\nUFC Mexico<\/a> on Saturday at the Arena CDMX in Mexico City,
\nMexico. The undefeated Rodriguez was a massive -470 favorite going
\ninto his UFC debut. But Borjas dropped Rodriguez twice early in the
\nfirst round, in what appeared to be the makings of a huge upset.
\nHowever, Rodriguez managed to take Borjas down and survive the
\nfirst round. Rodriguez repeated his dominance on the mat in the
\nsecond round before knocking Borjas out with a barrage late in the
\nround. Rodriguez says he recognised that Borjas was tired enough
\nfrom the grappling to go for the finish.<\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

Huge undefeated favourite Imanol
\nRodriguez<\/a> for dropped TWICE in round one, but survived.#UFCMexico<\/a><\/p>\n

pic.twitter.com\/vKKfawwbVE<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Verdict (@VerdictMMA)
\nMarch 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

The Academy Way<\/h2>\n

\u201cI knew he was gonna be a tough fight,\u201d Rodriguez told the UFC.
\n\u201cKevin also really hungry for a victory so I knew he was trying to
\ntake my head off. But I was focused and I followed the strategy and
\nthank God I finished with a win\u2026 I take down my opponent and when
\nhe came up, he came up really tired. So I looked at that and tried
\nto just finish the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodriguez\u2019s interview was interrupted by a congratulatory call from
\nhis coach, Daniel
\nCormier<\/a>, who told him, \u201cThat\u2019s the academy way.\u201d Rodriguez was
\ninitially on Cormier\u2019s team on Season 33 of \u201cThe Ultimate Fighter\u201d
\nlast year, where he was eliminated in the semi-finals. The
\n26-year-old subsequently started training under \u201cDC\u201d full time and
\nearned his UFC contract with a first-round knockout win on the
\n
\nDana White’s Contender Series<\/a> last year. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

“I feel comfortable. I feel secure about
\nmyself.”<\/p>\n

Imanol
\nRodriguez<\/a> discusses his dominant TKO victory in his debut at
\n
\n#UFCMexico<\/a>, and gets a congratulatory call from Daniel
\nCormier<\/a> mid-interview!<\/p>\n

Complete Main Card Results \u27a1\ufe0f https:\/\/t.co\/BpzhaK7mNG<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/6k3bMrBR1T<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 UFC News (@UFCNews)
\nMarch 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/center> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Cormier called up his protege mid-interview after a successful UFC debut.  Cormier student Imanol Rodriguez (7-0) made his UFC debut in a flyweight booking against Kevin Borjas (10-5) at UFC Mexico on Saturday at the Arena CDMX in Mexico City, Mexico. The undefeated Rodriguez was a massive -470 favorite going into his UFC debut. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}