Daniel Cormier, pro wrestling’s Bullet Club exchange heated barbs again

UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier is an unabashed fan of professional wrestling. Look no further than his overjoyed reaction to Seth Rollins winning the WWE heavyweight title at WrestleMania 31 as proof.

But Cormier ignited a minor furor in the wrestling world in December when he criticized an acrobatic sequence performed by indie wrestling favorites The Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson, at a Ring of Honor event that went viral. Fellow Ring of Honor wrestler Cody Rhodes — a stable mate of the Bucks in wrestling’s Bullet Club faction — took exception to Cormier’s criticism and let him hear about it on Twitter.

That exchange can be seen below.

While speaking about his love of professional wrestling during an in-studio appearance on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour, Cormier — who fights Volkan Oezdemir on Jan. 20 at UFC 220 — briefly touched on the social media silliness, explaining that he hasn’t watched as much wrestling as he usually does since everything went down.

“I’ve always loved it. Right now I’m not watching as much anymore because these guys kinda pissed me off a little bit,” Cormier said on The MMA Hour. “They turned me off to the whole thing. I’m like, what is wrong with these dudes? Everybody’s not going to like everything you do. Just so happens that I’m a professional wrestling fan that has a bit of a following himself.

“The wrestlers themselves said some stuff, and I was like, ‘Well, first off, calm down, because you know [*Cormier smacks his hand*]. Calm down. Initially, just calm down, because [*Cormier smacks his hand again*] — you and you and you, all of you together.’ Anyways, ‘Calm down. But secondly, you can’t dictate to people.’ And what really got me — what really got me was when a guy told me, he called me a charisma vacuum, meaning that I guess when I get on TV, it’s [*Cormier makes vacuum sound*] everybody turns off. Some guy on the internet.

“And then he goes, ‘You better go to the Performance Institute, or whatever it’s called, because Cody Rhodes will whip you. He’s a two-time state wrestling champion.’”

Cormier, of course, is a two-time Olympic wrestler and a UFC champion to boot, so he and host Ariel Helwani laughed off the anecdote, then moved on to a different topic. But Cormier’s words quickly caught the ears of The Young Bucks, and it wasn’t long before the beef reignited on social media.

The lesson, as always: It’s probably not a good idea to poke the bear, especially when the bear is in the middle of a weight cut on fight week.

Update: It seems cooler heads have prevailed.