The feud between recently-crowned Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight Champion, Daniel Cormier, and new-found rival, Ryan Bader, won't die down anytime soon.
If anything, it's going full speed ahead, as both men just can't seem to get along.
What really seems to grind Bader's gears, though, is that he feels Cormier got one of -- if not the -- easiest path to a title in the history of the sport.
After all, as he recently told Submission Radio, it wasn't too long ago that "DC" got his "butt whooped" by former champion, Jon Jones.
"He drops down to 205 pounds, and then he fights Patrick Cummins and Dan Henderson, and then gets a title shot. He gets his butt whooped, and then gets gifted another title shot, and then finally wins the belt. You know, that's pretty much the easiest path that I've ever heard or ever seen anybody getting that belt, the UFC belt. So for him to say that, then by his logic, then let's do it. But, I know I can go out there. I know I can beat him. Yeah I haven't gotten the respect, especially from him. So that's why I wanna go out there, that's why I wanna fight him, that's why I wanna prove to him and everybody else that not only do I belong in the same Octagon with him, I'm gonna beat him and I deserve to have that belt around my waist."
Cormier has never been one to lack confidence, but now that he can officially call himself UFC champion (without an asterisk), Bader claims all the success could go to his head. So much so, that eventually the 205-pound champ could turn into a "full blown diva."
"I just don't want to see Cormier or any other fighters start taking that Diva route. And so like you saw right when he came to the press conference, he goes "address me as champ." And you know he could be kind of joking around here and there, but you know I've been around him, and I can just see it just piling on, piling on, and pretty soon he's going to be a full blown diva."
After "DC" defeated Anthony Johnson at UFC 187 on (May 23, 2015) to claim the vacant 205-pound belt left behind by "Bones" (video highlights), Bader decided to crash the post-fight press conference, which almost lead to some impromptu fisticuffs between he and Cormier.
But, if Bader has his way, he could get the chance to settle his beef with the new champion pretty soon thanks to his current win streak and his spot on the official UFC rankings.
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