After years of denials, the former UFC champion admitted to cheating in his title defense when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. What did he do?

Daniel Cormier is a legend in the world of MMA and the UFC, where he was a champion in two weight divisions. He was only the second fighter to hold the title at two weights simultaneously, and the first ever to defend it. Now he has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, but during his speech he admitted to the fraud he has been suspected of for years.

The year was 2017, Daniel Cormier was the welterweight champion and he was about to defend his title against Anthony Johnson. Only, complications arose and Cormier could have lost his title without a fight.

The reason was simple. Cormier, as champion, failed to weigh the required 205 pounds, or 93 kilograms, on his first attempt. He was overweight by more than half a kilogram. On his second attempt, however, he made the weight.

There would be nothing strange about that, for example, in the Octagon Stephan Pütz managed to lose the extra two kilos he had before the last fight between the first and second attempt at the weigh-in. But Cormier dropped just over half a pound in two minutes.

And how did he do it? Not really. Cormier used an old trick that his nutritionist at the time, Dan Leith, told him. So he put both hands on a towel and hoped the trick would work. And it did.

So, after he “splits” the weight, a big celebration ensues. If he hadn’t made the weight, he would have lost his title. It’s worth noting that Cormier has so far denied any talk of cheating. But the case was long settled, even getting the label “Towelgate”.

Now, however, Cormier has come clean after five years, during his UFC Hall of Fame induction speech. “I think it’s time to be completely honest. I think I was probably holding a towel at the weigh-ins in Buffalo,” MMA Fighting quotes him as saying.

Cormier admitted that he wanted to give up the weigh-ins. His coaches even called his wife to get him in hot water where he would drop what he had overweighted. But he was against it. So Leith reminded him of old tricks.

“He asked me if I remembered the old wrestling trick, so I asked him if he could stand behind me. There are two of those tricks. You can put your hands behind you and the other person in question can lift you up. But he said it was a towel trick. Do you understand the level of ridiculousness that has to happen for that to work?” he added.

The moment it worked, however, he was overjoyed and couldn’t believe how lucky he was that it worked. Besides, he apologized to Johnson, his rival at the time, for doing it that way.

It’s worth noting, then, that Cormier won the fight in the second round on a rear-naked choke. He also believes that if he hadn’t weighed in and therefore lost the title, he would still have gone for the belt.

Source: MMA Fighting, UFC, YouTube