It was one of the more memorable – albeit unintentional – eye pokes in recent memory: [autotag]Stipe Miocic[/autotag] hit [autotag]Daniel Cormier[/autotag] in the left eye in the closing seconds of the third round of their UFC 252 heavyweight title fight.
The foul, which looked gruesome when shown on slow-motion replay, went unpenalized. And while Miocic was already winning their trilogy fight in the main event of the Aug. 15 card in Las Vegas, the eye poke did Cormier no favors as he valiantly fought through the fourth and fifth rounds essentially a one-eyed fighter before losing a unanimous decision.
On Monday, Cormier had good news when he updated his condition during his “Helwani and DC” show on ESPN: While the left eye hasn’t come all the way back around, he’s made great progress. And at the moment, it appears the torn cornea he suffered will not require surgery.
“It was concerning initially, because they did not know how severe the impact was going to be going forward. They didn’t know if I wasn’t going to need surgery and do all these other things,” Cormier said. “But luckily I was able to recover, and I feel better, and I prefer not to have surgery. I don’t want to go under the knife for everything. If it’s something that I can avoid, if it’s an option to not do it in that way, I’ll always use that option.”
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Still, as anyone who watched the former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champ during his post-fight interview could gather just from looking at him, Cormier had a rough time in the aftermath of the fight before things started turning around.
“It was very bad initially,” Cormier said. “The first week-and-a-half or so, it was really bad. It wasn’t open. It was completely blurry. But now it feels like I have an eyelash in it. I went and saw the doctor last week, and he told me that I’m probably not going to need surgery. It was bad for like a week, and then it started to get better. I got medicine, antibiotics and stuff that kind of goes into my eye three times a day.”
“It’s starting to get better and better and better,” Cormier continued. “It feels good but just feels like there’s something in there. Like, you know when you get an eyelash in there and you can’t get it out? It’s like that. It’s not bad, though, not bothering me that much.”
Besides, when you have a contact sports career that encompassed both world-class amateur wrestling and a championship-level MMA career, you get used to things being a little out of sorts in a way most people can’t grasp.
“You can almost get used to pretty much anything if you get used to it so long,” Cormier said. “I’m almost used to it. When my eye is opening, it’s like a little bit smaller, but it’s not as bad as it was the day of the fight.”
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