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Anaheim, Ca. — Stipe Miocic is your new UFC Heavyweight Champion, reclaiming the title Saturday night against the man who took it from him last summer. Daniel Cormier, a native of Lafayette, Louisiana, had the advantage in the first two rounds with his most impressive work in the second, finishing it off with a flurry of punches to Miocic’s head. Through two rounds DC led the judges scorecards across the board 20-18. Through three rounds, Cormier was up 29-28, 30-27, 29-28.

In the 4th round though, Miocic started to attack the body, landing numerous left hooks to DC’s right side, forcing him to adjust and protect that side and drop his hands. Miocic then saw his opening and went-in for the kill, dropping Cormier to the mat and finishing him off at the 4:03 mark of the 4th round when referee Herb Dean called the fight.

After the fight, Cormier (22-2) said he wasn’t going to make a decision immediately about whether he was done fighting or not. At 40 years old, he’s said the thought of retirement has of course crossed his mind, but leading-up to this UFC 241 card, he said he was just focused on this one event and would go from there. If he decides to keep competing, the no-brainer next fight would be the rubber match fight against Miocic (19-3) in hopes to re-claim the belt once again. If Cormier had won Saturday, the thought was he’d look to Jon Jones for another go at him, but a third and final fight for all the marbles against Miocic has jumped that now.

In the fight before Cormier vs. Miocic, Nate Diaz made his return to the octagon after a 3 year hiatus, defeating Anthony Pettis by unanimous decision. Diaz came out ready to brawl and had nearly double the amount of significant strikes than Pettis (106 to 59 total through the three rounds). The scorecard read 30-27, 30-27, 29-28.

After the fight, Diaz explained his absence from the sport, saying: “The reason I was off is cause everybody sucked and there was nobody to fight.”  He went-on to call-out the next opponent he wants to fight–  Jorge Masvidal, who was in the crowd. He gave Masvidal props for being a good fighter and tabbed him as a worthy next fight.