The Meaning of Cormier's and Gustafsson's Pre-Fight Sarcasm

At the UFC's Go Big press conference last month, somewhere in between Conor McGregor's bombast, light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier offered a few words for Alexander Gustafsson, his challenger in the main event of UFC 192 this Saturday.

"You know, if I was Alexander Gustafsson, honestly, I would be a little bit upset at you guys, because all you talk about is how close he fought Jon Jones," Cormier said. "What about his earth-shattering win over Jimi Manuwa, or his monumental win that was—do you know? I mean, really, somebody else. You guys talk about a fight that he lost. He lost. Let's stop talking about the fight that he lost and talk about something that this guy has done positive."

Sarcasm doesn't work on the Internet, and it apparently doesn't always work in real life either: Cormier's exuberant delivery masked his facetiousness as well as the fact that no one ever uses the expression "earth-shattering" seriously. Scattered applause reverberated through the MGM, and with attendees mistaking it for honest praise, Cormier dropped the pretense of the joke. "And when you look at it that way, you guys know exactly what's going to happen on October 3: he's going to lose to me."

Later, Gustafsson responded to Cormier through a Facebook post. Again, readers somehow misinterpreted words that clearly mocked Cormier's weight and legitimacy as a titleholder—for Christ's sake, he even wrote "earth-shattering":

Maybe that confusion is because we expect competitors to voice high-volume fighting words or rote claims of best-ever training camps—not subdued sarcasm (or, more recently, product placement for Halo 5 in the guise of social-media provocations). But when plenty of built-in caveats and a semi-absolved champion on the periphery make for a fight with easily misinterpreted stakes, an easily misinterpreted tenor to the build-up fits right in.

Let's review. Cormier is the champion and UFC 192 marks his first title defense since beating Anthony Johnson last May, but it's still just one fight and nine months removed from Cormier's own sound defeat to Jon Jones, the embattled 205-pound overlord. Gustafsson is ranked second in his division and is still earning dividends from that questionable loss to Jones in 2013, but he was KO'd by Johnson in January. Now, Gustafsson joins the rarified class of fighters who get title shots immediately after losses—a class that, incidentally, includes Cormier.

Then there was this week's announcement that Jones would sidestep jail time for community service and 18 months probation, presumably lighting the way for a return to the Octagon. And with a bang of the gavel, a fight for an undisputed championship had never felt more interim, and Cormier-Gustafsson became another part of the preface to Jones's next act.

Yet it's still a meaningful fight. One of the causalities of Jones's dominance—after four post-Liddell years of the belt changing owners at high speed—is that we lose perspective on how good you have to be just to fight him. Save for Johnson, who was still battling the scale while Jones ran through the division, every one of the UFC's top five light heavyweights has lost to Jones, and it's not a wasteland of no-talent scrubs. Cormier is 16-1, with most of those wins coming against elite heavyweights like Josh Barnett and Frank Mir. Gustafsson is 16-3 overall with 8-3 in the UFC, and while his strength of schedule doesn't erase the awkwardness of giving a losing fighter a title shot, it goes a long way toward explaining why he deserves to be opposite Cormier, Jimi Manuwa jokes aside. Of course, with Jones on the sidelines, there's no way a champion who hasn't beaten him could be undisputed. But the winner of UFC 192's main event—whoever it is—is automatically the most credible challenger upon Jones's return.

It's easy to misread the stakes of the fight and the worth of its fighters, just as it was easy to misread the snarky back and forth between Cormier and Gustafsson. In both cases, the meaning goes beneath what's on the surface.