UFC 252 results: Stipe Miocic defeats Daniel Cormier in trilogy fight after shock loss for Sean O'Malley

End of the road: Daniel Cormier lost to Stipe Miocic in what he says was his final UFC fight
Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
George Flood16 August 2020

Veteran UFC heavyweight Daniel Cormier's MMA career ended with defeat to Stipe Miocic in Saturday night's eagerly-anticipated trilogy bout.

The duo fought for the third and final time behind closed doors at UFC 252 in Las Vegas after splitting two previous memorable encounters at UFC 241 last August and at UFC 226 in July 2018, with the heavyweight belt changing hands on both of those prior occasions.

However, Miocic retained the gold on Saturday with a unanimous decision victory after five gruelling rounds, with the scorecards reading 49-46, 49-46 and 48-47 in favour of the champion.

Cormier was later taken to hospital for examination after sustaining a poke to the left eye during the third round that subsequently swelled up, with 'DC' complaining of vision problems after the fight.

Reiterating his decision to now step away from the octagon, the 41-year-old - a two-time UFC heavyweight champion and former light-heavyweight champion - said: "I'm not interested in fighting for anything but titles and I don't imagine there's going to be a title in future.

Marlon Vera stunned Sean O'Malley in the co-headline bout in Las Vegas
Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

"That will be it for me. I've had a long run, it's been great, I just fought my last fight for a heavyweight championship and it was a pretty good fight."

UFC 252 was also notable for the co-main event, in which previously unbeaten rising star Sean O'Malley suffered his first defeat in the promotion.

The highly-rated bantamweight left the octagon on a stretcher after appearing to suffer an early ankle injury and being floored in the first round by Ecuador's Marlon Vera, with the referee stepping in to end the fight after a succession of powerful elbows.

Elsewhere on the main card, heavyweight Jairzinho Rozenstruik secured a stunning knockout victory over Junior dos Santos, while Daniel Pineda stopped Herbert Burns in the second round of their catchweight bout.

Georgia's Merab Dvalishvili also collected his fifth consecutive win after beating John Dodson via unanimous decision in their three-round bantamweight contest.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in