Daniel Cormier isn’t defending Usman Nurmagomedov.
Usman and a group of men attacked Merab Dvalishvili in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, ahead of RAF Abu Dhabi. Dvalishvili was left bloodied. Cormier has trained alongside Team Nurmagomedov at American Kickboxing Academy for years, but he condemned the attack on his YouTube channel.
Today, I saw dangerous actions. I saw Usman Nurmagomedov and a group of guys jump Merab Dvalishvili. Watching that visual was actually very sad, because I know Usman; I know Merab. I know that there’s a lot of bad blood between these two camps. I also know that it should never lead to behavior like we saw today.
Usman’s brother, Umar Nurmagomedov, has a long, heated rivalry with Dvalishvili. Dvalishvili beat Umar at UFC 311, and the two sides clashed again at RAF Georgia, where Dvalishvili slapped one of Umar’s friends. Cormier said that doesn’t justify what happened.
One bad action should not lead to another bad action, because now both of these guys lose in this situation. Merab was there to wrestle in RAF; now he’s probably not going to get to compete. Usman is a free agent … this thing will stick with him for as long as his career goes now.
Cormier expects Khabib Nurmagomedov to step in.
I’m not trying to spin and protect anything: a bad behavior is a bad behavior. … I really would imagine, that when Khabib gets to him and speaks to him, Khabib will have a talking to him, about his actions and how they affect him now, and how they affect him down the line…
And honestly, I think Usman, when he looks back at this, he’s going to regret what he did, because that is a behavior that should be regretted.
Cormier also put some of the blame on RAF, which has seen several brawls at its events.
And honestly, I’ve got to tell you, RAF, the organization, which I love what they’re doing for wrestling, we’ve got to tighten it up. Because the environment now has fostered that type of behavior…
