VALLEY VIEW, Ohio -- When UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic is not training to or defending his title, he can be found at the fire house.
Not one to sit patiently waiting for fights to come around, Miocic holds down jobs as a firefighter/paramedic in the Cleveland suburbs of Oakwood Village and Valley View. While as the heavyweight champion, Miocic is considered “The Baddest Man on the Planet,” he is low on seniority at the fire house, and gets reminded of that often.
“You have a bunch of immature men that you work with and they keep you down,” Miocic quipped when addressing the media at the Valley View Fire Station during a recent training session.
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Although Miocic takes plenty of jokes at the fire station, he gives as good as he gets, and it won him a wager with his brothers in uniform after he won the UFC heavyweight championship with a first-round knockout of Fabricio Werdum in Curitiba, Brazil, in May of 2016.
Despite being the heavy underdog and fighting in Werdum’s home country in front of 45,000 fans, the third-largest crowd ever to see a UFC event, Miocic landed a punch to the jaw while backpedaling and finished the fight in under three minutes.
“It’s awesome,” Miocic said of the bond at the fire house. “I wouldn’t change it for the world. Literally, right after winning the title, I was at Oakwood and they were drilling me.
“I think I was here the next day, and they made me get out in the apron, put on my belt and make me wave to all the fans. There were no fans, just wave to cars. Then, I had a bet that someone had to come within three minutes and take a picture, which I did win that bet.”
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In a way, the verbal barbs and exchanges at the fire house helped fuel his run to the UFC heavyweight championship.
“You can ask any of the guys that work at the station,” Miocic said. “I said, ‘I’m going to be the heavyweight champion of the world.’ They pretty much told me to go kiss my (expletive). They all did, and they still do to this day. ‘You’re a paper champion.’ I told them when I walked in, ‘Hey, I’m going to be the heavyweight champion of the world,’ and they said, ‘Oh, okay.’ Here we are.”
And it has served as motivation for Miocic since winning the title.
Including a dominant unanimous-decision victory over top-ranked contender, and knockout machine, Francis Ngannou back in January, Miocic is on a six-fight winning streak. Miocic is 18-2 in his professional career and 12-2 in 14 bouts under the UFC banner heading into his fourth title defense, which will come against light-heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
“You always have to evolve,” Miocic said. “In this sport, if you take off six months, people are passing you up, so you’ve got train all the time and make sure you get better. At the same time, I think every fight’s different. It doesn’t matter who you fight.
“My last fight, I fought a big, strong guy that throws bombs. Now, I’ve got a guy that’s a great wrestler who comes forward and doesn’t stop too. Every fight’s different. Every fight changes. It’s going in there with the mentality it’s all the same. It’s just a different strategy.”