Dominick Reyes said sorry to Daniel Cormier on Monday. Then he spent the rest of the interview explaining why Cormier is bad at his job.
On “The Ariel Helwani Show,” the light heavyweight walked back the nastiest part of his weekend social media tirade, the part where he called the UFC Hall of Famer low IQ. He stood behind everything else. His core complaint is that Cormier leans on his résumé instead of preparing for the fights he calls.
“As a commentator, he slacks off because he lives off of his double champ status. It seems like he doesn’t do the research and work because he’s ‘double champ’ Daniel Cormier,” Reyes said.
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And the apology, for the record: “I will say, I did come off a little hard on Daniel, and I’m sorry for that, calling him low IQ and stuff like that.” He followed it with a line that pretty much sums up his whole position: “You’ve got to be more prepared, my guy.”
How it started
Reyes, 36, closed out the prelims at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi on Saturday with a first-round knockout of Azamat Murzakanov, finished by a head kick according to BJPenn.com. He didn’t watch the replay until hours later, and he didn’t like what he heard from the booth.
Cormier fired back on X the same day with a handful of posts. In one standalone tweet, he blamed edited Paramount+ highlight packages for stripping his comments of context, and he quoted his own call, including “Everybody had wrote this kid off.” Reyes told Helwani that Cormier was only partially right about that.
Reyes also pointed to Cormier’s history of training with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev, and said he hears a pattern when Russian fighters compete with Cormier on the mic. “It’s been years and years of him being biased [toward Russian fighters],” Reyes said.
He framed the whole thing as accountability for a part of the broadcast that rarely gets any. “The only people in the whole UFC that are never held accountable is the announcers. So it’s time,” he said. He also said he has no personal problem with Cormier and plans to keep reviewing commentary on his YouTube channel. “Dom’s YouTube channel is right there, and I’m going to be calling you out,” he warned the rest of the booth.
Cormier has heard this before. Dominick Cruz has said he mutes UFC broadcasts when Cormier is breaking down fights.
Where Reyes stands
The win over Murzakanov makes it two straight for the two-time light heavyweight title challenger. He was knocked out by Carlos Ulberg last year, then took a split decision over Johnny Walker at UFC 327 before Saturday’s finish. He says the goal is to fight his way back to a title shot at 205, the same division where Cormier spent most of his career. Both men also lost to Jon Jones, so they have that in common too.
I’ll take this version of Reyes all day. He apologized for the cheap shot, kept the actual criticism, and named exactly what bugged him instead of hiding behind a vague tweet. Whether Cormier is biased is a debate for a bar stool. A guy who just head-kicked his way back into the 205 conversation starting a YouTube watchdog channel for the announcers is the most interesting thing to come out of Abu Dhabi that didn’t happen inside the cage.
