{"id":336810,"date":"2025-10-27T20:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/336810\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T20:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:43:09","slug":"daniel-cormier-admits-he-was-a-little-upset-tom-aspinall-leaked-private-conversation-ahead-of-ufc-321","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/336810\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel Cormier admits he was \u2018a little upset\u2019 Tom Aspinall leaked private conversation ahead of UFC 321"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Cormier learned the hard way that private conversations can still get caught on camera.<\/p>\n

Ahead of UFC 321 this past weekend, the UFC Hall of Famer conducted a one-on-one interview with heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall before his fight against Ciryl Gane. After the interview wrapped, Cormier pulled Aspinall aside and offered him additional praise, saying he could go on a remarkable run in the division, especially when looking at the potential matchups ahead.<\/p>\n

During the conversation, Cormier noted that Jailton Almeida \u201ccan\u2019t fight\u201d as he prepared for a potential No. 1 contender\u2019s bout against Alexander Volkov on the same card. Almeida ultimately lost a split decision after he grappled his way to numerous takedowns but failed to produce almost any meaningful offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was literally trying to tell him you could possibly be on the verge of something tremendously special right now,\u201d Cormier explained on Good Guy\/Bad Guy <\/a>on Monday. \u201cIn that statement, I was saying Jailton\u2019s going to grapple you. It\u2019s not as dangerous a fight. I could have done a better job of saying that to Tom.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I was a little upset that Tom and them released that, if I\u2019m being honest with you. I thought when you lean into someone and you\u2019re talking quietly, that\u2019s a private conversation that should stay between you and the athlete. I thought it was Embedded, and I know that Embedded would never do something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The video was released on Aspinall\u2019s personal YouTube channel,<\/a> which offered a behind-the-scenes look at his final preparations as well as all the work that goes into fight week, which includes numerous interviews like the one conducted with Cormier.<\/p>\n

Aspinall never directly addressed his decision to record the conversation with Cormier or release it publicly, although he acknowledged that the former heavyweight and light heavyweight champion commended him on possibly becoming an all-time great heavyweight.<\/p>\n

As for Cormier, he addressed his criticism about Almeida, who remains a top 10-ranked heavyweight but has fallen short in the two biggest fights of his career, with Volkov and previously against Curtis Blades.<\/p>\n

Honest assessment or not, Cormier regrets that Almeida had to hear him talking that way, especially given that he believed he was only speaking directly to Aspinall and not being recorded.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of what you\u2019re saying, whether you\u2019re saying it in jest or you\u2019re being honest, Jailton Almeida deserves respect, and I do respect him and I feel bad,\u201d Cormier said. \u201cHe\u2019s been so nice to me since he got into the UFC, and I think Jailton Almeida\u2019s a great guy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that he does need to round out his game. Because the grappling is elite, but there\u2019s no damage. Even Dana [White] went up there after the fight and was like \u2018I\u2019m so glad that Volkov won because you don\u2019t just get to take somebody down and hold them down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The loss likely pushes Almeida out of title talk conversations for the immediate future and maybe even longer if the Brazilian can\u2019t find a way to inflict more damage on his opponents after securing takedowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sign up to go fight,\u201d Cormier said about Almeida. \u201cYou have to fight. You really just have to go out there and fight. I think Jailton\u2019s going to watch that last fight and be very upset about that performance and not getting the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Cormier learned the hard way that private conversations can still get caught on camera. Ahead of UFC…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":336811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[105,62,552,562,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-336810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-latest-news","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-ufc","11":"tag-ufc-news","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115448080277433457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}