Former UFC doubles champion Daniel Cormier talked about how he was introduced to wrestling and how the sport shaped him as a fighter and as a man during a recent sit-down with Megan Olivi.
The Olympic wrestler began by revealing that he and his siblings in Lafayette, Louisiana, wrestled on old mattresses in the backyard of their home from a very young age.
Daniel Cormier then talked about the first fight he had at school with a kid named Gilbert. He added that Gilbert would beat him all the time, and at first “DC” didn’t fight back the bully. However, once Cormier learned to wrestle, he “kicked Gilbert’s ass.”
“I bet the first fight I had was probably with the guy I talk to all the time about him, and he gets mad at me. His name is Gilbert. He hit me all the time. All the time… I remember one time he hit me so hard that I fell to the ground, and I could hear the other kids saying, ‘Oh, he’s going to do this, he’s going to do this.’ I got up from the ground, picked myself up and walked home. I didn’t even fight. It honestly built up a fear of confrontation that I had for a long time until I learned to wrestle. And then everything changed because I kicked his *ss.
While discussing how he got into wrestling, Daniel Cormier shared another interesting incident from the past. “DC” told Megan Olivi that when he was 10-11 years old, his high school wrestling coach, Tank Lotiv, saw him and his other friends wrecking in the parking lot one day. When I see the children fighting, the coach said:
“Why don’t you come and wrestle?”
That was just the beginning of Daniel Cormier’s journey.
From a boy who started wrestling to defend himself to building a distinguished career in the sport and eventually becoming a double champion in the UFC, his legacy is now etched in history.
Daniel Cormier discusses the two most important lessons he’s learned from wrestling
During the same sit-down, “DC” also spoke about the two most important life lessons wrestling taught him. He added:
“I went from being afraid to not being afraid because wrestling gave me the tools to defend myself. It also built a desire to never be bullied again. Every time I was in a face to face situation and someone challenged me, I never backed down from the challenge. Maybe that’s why I haven’t quit, because it felt like I was being challenged all over again… Through wrestling and the confidence it gave me, I literally never backed down from anyone in a one-on-one situation.”
Watch Daniel Cormier’s comments below (7:40):
#Daniel #Cormier #credits #wrestling #making #mentally #strong