Daniel Cormier is scheduled to return to the UFC octagon June 6 after suffering the first loss of his professional career in January to Jon Jones. He will take on Ryan Bader in New Orleans, and he hopes to use the fight to springboard right back into a title shot. Bader, however, plans on putting an emphatic end to those plans.
"I feel I can put my hands on him, and I feel like if I can put my hands on anybody in the division I can knock them out," Bader said. "I know I'm going to hit Cormier. So I just feel comfortable. I feel like if he takes me down I'll get back up. I feel like I have the ability to take him down, have the ability to land some heavy shots on him, and put him away, really."
Bader has lost to Jones already in his career, but he has rebounded well from a shaky stretch in 2012 and 2013 in which he lost two of three fights. Bader's reeled off four consecutive wins, most recently knocking off highly-rated Phil Davis on January 24.
Davis was not able to take Bader down in that fight, and Bader showed nifty footwork as well as crisp, quick striking. He thinks that striking, plus his preparedness against Cormier's stellar wrestling, will be the trick to scoring a major upset.
"He's been fighting a lot of guys that aren't really wrestlers. He fought Pat Cummins, yes, and he's fought Jones. He lost to Jones, and we didn't see too much in the Cummins fight," Bader explained.
"I think a lot of times people are just kind of surprised with that whole wrestling. He has some different things that if you're not aware of, and you're not in that wrestling world, you're not thinking they're much."
Jones was able to resist Cormier's takedowns in their championship bout, routinely frustrating Cormier and tiring him out.
"There are little things that can negate his takedowns and all that kind of stuff. It's just high level wrestling, and people that don't know much about wrestling and step in there with Cormier, and obviously he's a very confident, very good wrestler, they're going to have a tough time."
Bader also said that Cormier's approach is predictable, and therefore ripe for exploitation from a big puncher.
"Cormier, you can hit him. He comes straight forward. You know what he's going to do," said Bader. "He's going to come straight in your face. He's going to try and bully you with that over-tie with punches, and then with his single leg in wrestling."
Putting Cormier down still might be a tall task for Bader though, who despite improving technically, hasn't stopped any of his opponents during his current four-fight winning streak. All of them lost by decision, and Bader hasn't won via KO or TKO since knocking out Jason Brilz in 2011.
[Yahoo]
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