Daniel Cormier knows exactly who he’d like to see fight for the flyweight title next.
Cormier was on color commentary duty at UFC 323 last Saturday, where he witnessed longtime flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja suffer a devastating elbow injury.
The Brazilian’s misfortune resulted in Joshua Van being crowned the new king at 125 pounds, and “DC” believes the man who won the bout immediately before Saturday’s co-main event is perfectly positioned to challenge the new champion while Pantoja recovers.
“I believe that Tatsuro Taira, after beating Brandon Moreno and finishing Brandon Moreno, should be fighting for the belt,” Cormier told Chael Sonnen on their podcast Good Guy/Bad Guy. “I looked over at Mick Maynard last night (at UFC 323) and I said to him, 'Book them tomorrow.' He goes, 'What do you mean?' I go, 'Tatsuro Taira got hit 10 times against Brandon Moreno, nothing happened.' They were boxing for about 45 seconds, he goes for a takedown, he ends up in that weird triangle position with Moreno, and they stay there the whole round. ... There's no damage on either side.
"There are fight cards at the beginning of the year where you could say, hey, I know Alexander Volkanovski has a fight on Feb. 1, generally we like to do two title fights on these pay-per-views. Why not make this the second fight (at UFC 325)? Tatsuro Taira and Joshua Van. Van won't say no, then you turn them around. That's two months since Pantoja got hurt.
“Say the winner of that fight needs six months before the next fight, now you're eight months post Pantoja's injury. Now you've either got him going into the rematch with Joshua Van, or he's fighting a brand new champion. The whole weight class seems refreshed because it kept moving."
