LOS ANGELES, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- Stipe Miocic defeated Daniel Cormier with a precise fourth-round knock out to reclaim his Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) World Heavyweight crown at UFC 241 in Anaheim, California.
After waiting more than a year to get his rematch with Cormier, Miocic showed immense skill and restraint to stick to his game plan of keeping the wrestler Cormier at distance throughout the bout.
During the fourth round, Miocic's plans came to fruition after he caught Cormier with a number of significant body punches. Despite shrugging off the first three body blows, a fourth left hook to the body caused Cormier to drop his guard, which led to a sequence of accurate headshots that steered to the finishing knockout against the cage.
Leading up to the fourth, the judges had the fight scored in favor of Cormier, who showed skill scoring a takedown in the first, while his standup game scored consistently in the second and third, without ever causing damage to Miocic.
Momentum began to shift during the third round as Miocic caught Cormier with several powerful strikes, despite getting caught a couple of times himself.
The fourth saw Miocic execute his game plan of switching his style to attempting body hooks whenever the chance presented itself after throwing hard straight rights to Cormier's head.
Cormier told broadcasters following the fight, "I think he made a great adjustment," in reference to the adjustments Miocic made in the fourth.
"I felt like that hook to the body was hurting him," Miocic said. "His hands were dropping, so I came over the top more. My coach told me to use that right hand. I knew I was hurting him. I just had to keep working, keep working until something opened up."
"DC is a tough guy, I've got to give it to him," Miocic continued, "I saw some weakness in that third round, and then in that fourth round, I caught him with that right hand, thank God, because he's tough."
UFC 241 also saw the highly anticipated return of Nate Diaz to the Octagon after three years. The all-round fighter, who last fought on August 20, 2016, in a majority decision loss to MMA icon Conor McGregor, returned to claim an easy unanimous decision victory against Anthony Pettis.
The UFC roadshow will move on to China next for UFC Fight Night in Shenzhen. Chinese fighter Zhang Weilin will be hoping to become China's first-ever UFC world champion during her headline fight with Jessica Andrade on August 31.
