Daniel Cormier Calls Alex Pereira Out, ‘He's A Liar'
Daniel Cormier and Alex Pereira appear to have a good relationship, but the former used a strong word to describe the former UFC light heavyweight and middleweight champion.
Pereira found himself in a bit of a controversy this week when a post from his X account went viral. Pereira was seemingly addressing frustration, as the post implied he felt disrespected by not getting placement in the main event for UFC 317 this summer.
Hours after the post went viral, Pereira posted a video claiming he was hacked and that he never said any of those things. Cormier wasn't buying it. On a recent episode of his Good Guy/Bad Guy podcast with Chael Sonnen, Cormier tore into Pereira's claims of being hacked.
When Sonnen expressed disbelief at Cormier's bluntness, the Olympic medalist, former two-division UFC champion, and Hall of Famer doubled down on his take.
'I'm saying it,' Cormier said. 'I'm saying it in public. I'm sorry. I'm saying it. I'm saying it in public.'
Cormier believes the beef stems from the UFC offering someone else the prime position on the UFC 317 card after he said he was unavailable to fight this summer.
For what it's worth, Cormier isn't the only person who doubted the validity of Pereira's claims of being hacked. Several members of the MMA community took to social media in an attempt to poke holes in the UFC star's explanation for the post.
In any case, we're still waiting to hear who will headline UFC 317. If Pereira is on the sideline for UFC 317 and doesn't have a choice spot sometime soon, it may further validate Cormier's claims.
It'll also be interesting to see what happens with Pereira and Cormier's relationship. Even when accurate, it's sometimes tough for a man to handle being labeled a liar.
In any case, next up for the promotion is UFC 315. The pay-per-view event takes place on Saturday, May 10, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Here is a look at the card and weigh-in results.
The card features two championship
Date: May 10, 2025
Location: Bell Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Main Card (ESPN+ PPV, 10 p.m. ET)
Welterweight Title Bout:
Belal Muhammad (170 lbs) vs. Jack Della Maddalena (170 lbs)
Women's Flyweight Title Bout:
Valentina Shevchenko (124 lbs) vs. Manon Fiorot (125 lbs)
Featherweight Bout:
José Aldo (143 lbs) vs. Aiemann Zahabi (142 lbs)Originally scheduled as a bantamweight bout. Changed to featherweight due to Aldo's weight-cut issues.
Women's Flyweight Bout:
Alexa Grasso (126 lbs) vs. Natália Silva (126 lbs)
Lightweight Bout:
Benoît Saint Denis (156 lbs) vs. Kyle Prepolec (156 lbs)
Preliminary Card (ESPN/ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET)
Welterweight Bout:
Mike Malott (171 lbs) vs. Charles Radtke (171 lbs)
Women's Flyweight Bout:
Jessica Andrade (126 lbs) vs. Jasmine Jasudavicius (124 lbs)
Light Heavyweight Bout:
Modestas Bukauskas (203 lbs) vs. Ion Cuțelaba (205 lbs)
Light Heavyweight Bout:
Navajo Stirling (205 lbs) vs. Ivan Erslan (205 lbs)
Early Preliminary Card (ESPN+, 6:30 p.m. ET)
Middleweight Bout:
Marc-André Barriault (185 lbs) vs. Bruno Silva (187 lbs)*
Featherweight Bout:
Daniel Santos (146 lbs)** vs. Jeong Yeong Lee (146 lbs)
Bantamweight Bout:
Brad Katona (136 lbs) vs. Bekzat Almakhan (136 lbs)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Lopez: Three years away from the Olympics, L.A. is tripping over hurdles and trying to play catchup
Los Angeles is now a mere 12 months away from serving as primary host of the World Cup soccer championships, and three years away from taking the world stage as host of both the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics. Athletes and tourists by the tens of thousands will pour into the region from around the world, and I'm reminded of the classic film 'Sunset Boulevard,' in which Gloria Swanson proclaimed, 'I'm ready for my close-up.' Will L.A. be ready for its close-up? That's a question I intend to explore on a semi-regular basis, and you're invited to worry and wonder along with me by sending your comments and questions to To let you know where I'm coming from, I'm a sports fan who watches the Olympics on television despite the politics, the doping scandals and the corporatization of the Games. But I'm also a professional skeptic, and my questions extend far beyond whether we're ready for our close-up. Here are just a few: Will the benefits of hosting outweigh the burdens? Read more: Need a sidewalk fixed in L.A? It could take City Hall 10 years, if you're lucky Will the average Southern Californian get anything out of the years-long buildup and staging of the Games? And, will basic services and infrastructure near Olympic venues get upgrades at the expense of long-overdue improvements in other areas? The answer to that question is a big 'yes,' says L.A. Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who represents the northeastern San Fernando Valley. 'What I've seen in [the latest] budget is that those areas that will be hosting some of the Olympic events will be prioritized,' she said, and that means her district is off the radar. It's worth noting that the city of Los Angeles is not running these Olympics (that's the job of LA28, a private nonprofit working in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee), nor is it hosting all the events. Olympic sites will be scattered well beyond Los Angeles proper, with volleyball in Anaheim, for instance, cricket in Pomona, cycling in Carson and swimming in Long Beach. Softball and canoe slalom competitions will be held in Oklahoma City. But as lead host and a partner in the staging of mega-events that will draw an international spotlight, the reputation of the city of Los Angeles is on the line. One financial advantage the 2028 Games will enjoy over previous Olympics is that there's no need to erect any massive, ridiculously expensive new stadiums or arenas. There'll be soccer at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, track and field at the L.A. Coliseum and baseball at Dodger Stadium, for instance. All of which will keep the overall cost of the Games down. But playing the part of primary Olympic host carries as many risks as opportunities. 'The Games have a history of damaging the cities and societies that host them,' according to an analysis last year in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, which cited 'broken budgets that burden the public purse … the militarization of public spaces … and the expulsion of residents through sweeps, gentrifications and evictions.' Even without all that, L.A. has a raft of problems on its hands, and the close-up at the moment is not a pretty portrait. Read more: Can MacArthur Park be saved? A look to the past points the way forward Tens of thousands of people are homeless, and the agency overseeing homelessness is in turmoil amid damning financial audits, so unless there's a quick turnaround, the city will be draped in blue tarps for all the world to see. Meanwhile, planned transportation improvements are behind schedule, skyrocketing liability claim settlements are expected to cost $300 million this year, and on top of all that, it suddenly dawned on local leaders several weeks ago that the city was broke. 'Our budget situation is critical,' Mayor Karen Bass wrote in an April letter to the City Council, outlining a nearly $1-billion deficit and proposing numerous program cuts and layoffs. The City Council restored some of those trims, but the outlook is still grim, with several hundred workers losing their jobs. Bass and other local leaders maintain that playing host to mega-events will help restock the treasury. But the opposite could be true, and if the $7-billion Games don't break even, the already-strapped city will get slapped with a $270-million bailout tab. For all the hand-wringing at City Hall, it's not as if the current budget deficit should have come as a surprise. Revenue is down, the response to homelessness devours a big chunk of the budget (without transformational progress to show for the investment), and the bills keep coming due on the City Hall tradition of awarding public employee pay raises it can't afford. That's why there's a 10-year wait to get a ruptured sidewalk fixed (although the city is much quicker to pay millions in trip-and-fall cases), and there's an estimated $2 billion in deferred maintenance at recreation and parks department facilities. At TorchedLA, journalist Alissa Walker reports that in an annual ranking of park systems in the largest 100 cities, L.A. has dropped to 90th, which she fairly called "a bad look for a city set to host the largest sporting events in the world." Speaking of bad looks, moving thousands of athletes and tourists around the city will be key to the success of the Games, but some of the so-called "28 by 28" transportation improvements slated for completion by the start of the Olympics have been dereailed or scaled back. And my colleague Colleen Shalby reported last month that Metro's projected budget deficit over the next five years is massive: 'Critical parts of Metro's Olympics plans are yet to be nailed down," she wrote. "The agency has yet to confirm $2 billion in funds to lease nearly 3,000 buses, which are integral to Los Angeles' transit-first goal for the Games.' Michael Schneider, founder of the nonprofit Streets for All, said L.A.'s budget crisis 'is coming at the worst possible time.' Not that the delivery of basic infrastructure needs should be tied to major sporting events, but he had hoped the Olympics would trigger a substantial investment in 'bus rapid transit, a network of bike lanes, sidewalks that aren't broken, curb ramps. Just the nuts and bolts of infrastructure.' Jules Boykoff, a Pacific University professor and former professional soccer player who has studied the social and economic impacts of several recent Olympics, is not wowed by L.A.'s record so far. 'I thought Los Angeles was going to be in a lot better shape,' Boykoff said. 'I've been taken aback by the problems that exist and how little has been done.' The real goal isn't just to host the Olympics, Boykoff said, but to do so in a way that delivers long-lasting improvements. 'Any smart city' uses the Games 'to get gains for everybody in the city. Athens in 2004 got a subway system,' he said, Rio de Janeiro in 2016 got a transit link, and last year's host, Paris, got a system of bike lanes. Read more: Reopen Alcatraz as a prison? Yes, but Trump shouldn't stop there L.A. had gold-medal aspirations, and the city has made some transit improvements. It's also got a wealth of signature natural wonders to show off, from the mountains to the sea, just as the Paris Games featured the Eiffel Tower and the magical evening skyline. But three big hurdles now stand in the way of making it to the podium: The budget limitations (which could get worse between now and 2028), the diversion of resources to the Palisades wildfire recovery, and the uncertainty of desperately needed federal financial support from President Trump, who would probably not put Los Angeles on his list of favorite cities. Races are sometimes won by runners making a move from the back of the pack, and L.A. could still find its stride, show some pride, and avoid embarrassing itself. That's what I'm rooting for. But just one year away from the World Cup and three from the Olympics, the clock is ticking, and it's almost too late to be playing catchup. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Some animals seem to appreciate music. What does that mean for human evolution?
Ronan the sea lion can dance to a lot of different songs, but there is something about 'Boogie Wonderland,' by Earth, Wind and Fire that really gets her going. It didn't take more than a few days for Peter Cook, a marine mammal sciences professor at the New College of Florida, to train Ronan to bop her head to music. Using fish as a reward, he taught her the movement. Then he taught her to move when a metronome played. Over the course of the next two months, he gave her a fish every time she synchronized her head bops to the beat of the music. Once that clicked, she could do it 60 times in a row within a couple of days, he said. Before long, she was able to do this with music recorded live in a studio with natural fluctuations, complex instrumentation and syncopation, meaning different beats were emphasized in different measures, Cook explained. And it wasn't just Earth, Wind and Fire that got her moving, but also the Backstreet Boys and other rock songs. 'Once she understood the task, she seemed to be able to transfer that knowledge over to even complex musical types of stimuli, which do have things like meter,' Cook told Salon in a phone interview. 'The thing is, we're just not sure how she thinks about or understands things like meter, syncopation or anything like that.' Historically, many thought that humans were the only animals that could recognize an external beat and synchronously move to it. But in 2007, Snowball the cockatoo went viral for dancing to the rhythm of the Backstreet Boys. Then, in 2013, Ronan the sea lion similarly acquired world-fame for moving her head rhythmically to the beat of music. These two case studies are part of a growing field of research set on trying to understand which animals have the capacity to be musical, providing clues on how and why music evolved in humans. In 1871, Charles Darwin wrote: "The perception, if not the enjoyment, of musical cadences and of rhythm is probably common to all animals.' Darwin suggests that if music gives us pleasure, it has an evolutionary purpose. And if all animals share a common ancestor, it could be something that is evolutionarily shared. But that isn't easy to investigate. 'We have this problem in studying the origins of musicality … Music doesn't fossilize,' said Henkjan Honing, a professor of Music Cognition at the University of Amsterdam. 'Cross-species work is a way of resolving that problem because the assumption is that if you share a certain trait with a genetically close species, then the common ancestor might also have had that particular skill.' In a way, all animals make rhythms, whether in the form of fireflies flashing, birds chirping or even a tiger pacing back and forth. Some of these rhythms are influenced by pure physiology: Walking, swimming and having a heartbeat are all rhythmic. Yet defining what constitutes music is challenging because it is inherently subjective. Plus, we don't know if animals experience music as music, or if that is our own human experience we are projecting onto them. In one study released last month, eastern and western chimpanzees — which are two different subspecies — were observed in the wild to have distinct drumming patterns. These patterns are short, structured and rhythmic, but they are thought to be used more for communication purposes than for music, said study author Vesta Eleuteri, who studies the evolution of social cognition and communication at the University of Vienna. 'Some chimpanzees drum with isochrony [occurring at the same time], but we didn't find evidence of other core musical rhythms that are present in humans,' Eleuteri told Salon in a video call. Musicality generally implies that animals have control over the rhythm they are making and use it flexibly. One way to determine if an animal is musical is to see if they have the ability to identify a note's pitch in relation to other notes. Another way, which has been studied more, is to see if they are capable of synchronizing to beats in a rhythm, Honing children have been shown to do this before they can walk or talk, though it's unclear whether this ability is learned or innate. Children aren't perfectly synchronized to the beat at younger ages and they improve over time, suggesting that it could be something that is socially learned. On the other hand, one 2009 study found evidence in baby's brains that they were detecting rhythmic patterns as young as seven months old, which could indicate that this ability is already functional at birth. Nevertheless, in a study published in May, Ronan the sea lion was shown to perform better than adult humans when tasked with moving in sync to a beat. Although Ronan doesn't perform this task outside of her training sessions on her own, she does get a fish regardless of whether or not she moves to the music in training sessions, indicating she is voluntarily moving to the beat, Cook said. It's unclear what motivates Ronan to perform this activity, but Cook said sea lions are kind of like the Border Collies of the sea and can quickly learn new tasks. As such, it could have something to do with mastering a task, he explained. 'I think she enjoys the cognitive challenge and the opportunity to sort of master something and then practice that mastery,' he said. 'I just don't know if it's about groove the way it is with humans.' Looking at similarities and differences between our closest living relatives, primates, can provide clues into whether music shares a common ancestral origin. In humans, if we are walking or typing and listening to music, we naturally sync up to the rhythm. In studies conducted by Yuko Hattori, an assistant professor at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute, chimpanzees were able to synchronize their movement to a variety of rhythms. Similar findings were also reported in another study with a bonobo, in which the bonobo was also able to synchronize its drum beats to a human in the experiment. Movements from primates in these studies are not as precise as humans, but one hypothesis used to explain the origins of music could help explain the differences. It suggests that in humans, our ability to move in time with a beat stems from vocal learning. It could be that humans' ability to refine that beat synchronization evolved along with our vocalization abilities, Hattori said. 'The monkeys are a more distant evolutionary distant species, and so perhaps that there is some gradual development in the course of primate evolution,' Hattori told Salon in a video call. This hypothesis could explain why birds like Snowball and humans can move to a rhythm, although it raises questions about Ronan the sea lion's ability to move to the beat. Sea lions don't naturally adapt their calls to external stimuli in the wild, although seals do, which share an evolutionary root with sea lions more than 20 million years up the ancestral tree. However, it could be that this shared ancestor is related to some degree of vocal learning in sea lions. It's rare to get a brain scan of chimpanzees or sea lions due to ethical reasons, so what is happening neurologically when these animals move to the music is also unknown. However, experiments in birds like the zebra finch help provide some answers as to why this species sings. Although zebra finches sing their own songs and do not move to external rhythms, they do at some point learn those songs from other zebra finches, so there is some degree of learning and internalization related to music. In one 2017 study, Ofer Tchernichovski, who studies animal behavior at Hunter College, and his team set up an experiment in which birds had to get an unpleasant air puff in order to reach a peep hole where they could see a singing bird. What they found was that males were always willing to 'pay' to hear any song, whereas females were only willing to hear the song if they were presented with the song of their mate. When females were presented with the song of her mate, dopamine levels went up. 'The thing is, the females are not very sensitive to songs, so this was exactly the opposite of what we thought,' Tchernichovski told Salon in a video call. 'What we think is that for females, the song is really about sex, whereas for male zebra finches, it's more social.' Another study released earlier this year found dopamine activity increased in young zebra finches when they sang songs that were closer to their eventual adult song versions compared to when they sang songs that deviated further away from them. Other studies have shown male zebra finches 'self-evaluate' their songs when practicing alone with songs they sing better activating the dopamine system more than songs they sing worse. However, when singing for females, their dopamine system is activated by a social response based on the cues they receive from the female. Studies show that the dopamine system in humans is also activated when we listen to music. In one study, people listened to their favorite music while under an fMRI machine. In anticipation of that moment, the dopamine system was activated in the brain. Furthermore, studies have also shown that musical training in adolescence increases empathy and prosocial behaviors. In other words, it brings us together — which we see when we clap to the beat at a concert or sing the lyrics to popular songs. One 2014 study found infants were more likely to help someone if that person rocked them synchronously versus whether they did so out of rhythm. 'One of the theories that is important for the origins of musicality is that it could be a way of social bonding, of increasing the social cohesion of the group,' Honing said. 'You see the same thing with Snowball: He likes to dance when his owner is there … She always dances with him, and that's what the bird likes.' 'Enjoyment is the key,' Honing added. 'If you get pleasure out of something, that means it's important biologically, so it might be an adaptation.'
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Biles calls Gaines 'sick' in trans rights row
Olympic gymnastics champion Simone Biles has called former US swimmer and activist Riley Gaines "sick" over online comments about a transgender woman softball player. Gaines, who has regularly spoken out about transgender women athletes competing in women's sport, mocked Minnesota State High School League for removing comments on their post about the Chaplin Park girls' team celebrating the State Championship. Chaplin Park's team includes a transgender woman player. "You're truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser," Biles wrote on X. Gaines tied for fifth place with transgender woman Lia Thomas in the 200m freestyle swimming at the 2022 NCAA Championships. Later that year, World Aquatics voted to stop transgender women from competing in women's elite races if they have gone through any part of the process of male puberty. Thomas has since failed with a legal challenge to change the rules. "You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender category IN ALL sports," continued Biles. "But instead... You bully them... One thing's for sure is no one in sports is safe with you around." Biles, a seven-time gold medallist, has been an outspoken campaigner for mental health awareness throughout her career. She withdrew from the women's team final at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, as well as four subsequent individual finals, in order to prioritise her mental health. Gaines responded to Biles in follow-up posts, saying the gymnast's stance was "so disappointing" and saying she should not be advocating for transgender women in women's sport with her platform. Since tying with Thomas in 2022, Gaines has said she felt "cheated, betrayed and violated". She has become an advocate for banning transgender women athletes from competing against women and girls. In February, Gaines was present at the White House when United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order excluding transgender girls and women from competing in women's sports. In April, judges at the UK Supreme Court ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law. Since that ruling, a number of UK sporting bodies, including the Football Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board, have banned transgender women from playing in women's sport. Thomas wins US collegiate swimming title Trans athletes no threat to women's sport - Thomas
