With his win against Ovince Saint Preux in the UFC Fight Night 73, Glover Teixeira thinks that he is now eligible to be in the UFC light heavyweight MMA title contender group. However, Champion Daniel Cormier does not believe this should happen.
In a recent interview, Teixeira felt that he can now call out another fighter to get in the octagon with him because of his epic win against Saint Preux. Saint Preux lost to Teixeira because of a submission move in the third round. With this win, Teixeira, who has a record of (23-4 MMA, 6-2 UFC), called out Daniel Cormier (16-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) on a championship showdown.
During the post-fight interview on FOX Sports 1, Teixeira said, “I’m not a trash talker, but I’m calling you out. He’s a great champion and he deserves to be champion. He’s the champion right now, who else am I going to come for?”.
Cormier, however, already has fight coming up at UFC 192 this coming October. He will be going up against Alexander Gustafsson, who has a record of 16-3 MMA and 8-3 UFC. Cormier had a lot of activities before this fight was scheduled. Aside from being an analyst on the UFC Fight Night 73 post-fight show, Cormier also won the 205-pound title belt by defeating Anthony Johnson a few months ago.
With this achievement, Cormier believes that it should be Teixeira should not be the one getting matched up against him for the belt. Cormier thinks the winner on the upcoming fight between Ryan Bader (19-4 MMA, 12-4 UFC) and Rashad Evans (19-3-1 MMA, 14-3-1) should be the one given the chance on his belt instead.
“He keeps on (calling me out); he’s doing it time and time again. Listen, Glover Teixeira, great job. You fought well. You’ve got more work to do. Don’t go jumping the line. My man Rashad Evans, if he gets past Ryan Bader, deserves the next shot. Slow down Mr. Teixeira,” Cormier said.
It took a couple of years before Teixeira was able to win a fight again. He was not always on the losing side though. There was a time where he had a 22-fight winning streak all the way from 2005. However, Teixeira went into a back-to-back loss to Jones and Phil Davis. His win with Saint Preux just recently had put him back on the winning side.
Teixeira won over Saint Preux by ending their fight with a rear-naked choke. He used a lot wrestling-heavy techniques as well. Cormier is not convinced that Teixeira has already what it takes to fight him. Furthermore, he thinks Teixeira needs more wins before he can consider himself as a convincing title contender.
“Come on – that guy you saw fighting is not beating me. He did a good job but he’s not beating me. I saw improvement in his conditioning. What’s he going to do? Take me down repeatedly? Glover Teixeira needs more fights. I cannot say coming off a loss and one win shouldn’t get you a title fight. I got a title fight. Gustafsson got a title fight off a loss. We never really know what’s going to happen with Glover,” Cormier added.