Great fight, Stipe survived some good shots but the numbers don’t lie. Undeniably the greatest Heavyweight champion of all time.
Absolutely and it's a shame, just the way it goes sometimes though, we all know DC has benefitted from eye pokes before.
The story of the fight was really Stipe’s ability to nullify DC’s weapons. As Cormier said, Stipe learned after round one not to leave his leg out there and gave him no chance for a single let. Then he was able to use the double underhooks to keep him from throwing the right hook off the break. It was a great end to the trilogy and was really competitive, but ultimately it was a decisive one for Stipe.
Stipe is so humble haha his post fight conference was mostly just him making fun of himself. A little different than what you’d expect from the actual toughest guy on the planet.
Yeah I don’t believe Stipe’s eye poke was intentional at all, it was a range setup. Hard for me to feel sympathy for arguably one of the most eye-poking fighters in the roster anyways. But DC diehards are gonna beat that horse into oblivion.
I definitely don’t celebrate eye-pokes at all. I think if a fighter has to be warned twice it should be an automatic point deduction. However, I also don’t believe like most DC fans that it was a deciding factor on the win. DC landed well, Stipe landed better. He controlled in the clinch, rocked DC twice, and kept moving forward the whole fight while keeping it on the feet.