Daniel Cormier is of the opinion that the top of the UFC pound-for-pound rankings should be tweaked.
Coming out of UFC 319, Khamzat Chimaev vaulted up 10 spots to No. 4 after his complete domination of Dricus Du Plessis to claim the middleweight title. That puts Chimaev behind only fellow UFC champions in No. 1 Ilia Topuria, No. 2 Islam Makhachev and No. 3 Merab Dvalishvili.
Still, for Cormier, Chimaev isn’t high enough.
“He should be No. 3,” Cormier said on “Good Guy Bad Guy” with Chael Sonnen. “What it means, pound-for-pound, is your fight style transcends weight classes.”
And that’s the key factor for Cormier. While Dvalishvili has been much more active than Chimaev during a 13-fight winning streak that includes three title-fight wins, two of them defenses this year, Cormier holds it against the bantamweight champion that his success has come in only one division.
“Merab has not fought in any other weight class,” Cormier said. “Khamzat Chimaev had success at welterweight at a very high level, was on the verge of a title fight, has to go up, becomes a champion there. He beat Kamaru Usman, who was the champion at 170 at the time that he was working his way up the rankings.
“Because of those things, I think he falls right in line with Islam and Ilia Topuria, right in front of Merab Dvalishvili.”
Dvalishvili will have another chance to convince Cormier otherwise Oct. 4 when he goes for his third title defense against Corey Sandhagen in the UFC 320 co-main event.
