Daniel Cormier got what he wanted after Rashad Evans fell out of their fight: He got to stay on the UFC 170 card.

In that way, all of Cormier’s work cutting from heavyweight to 205 pounds for the first time won’t go to waste. But it wasn’t long after he got word of his replacement opponent, a training partner from 10 years ago, that he started hearing Patrick Cummins’ rumblings about what he had done to Cormier.

Cummins said he “broke” Cormier in practice and made him cry while helping him prepare for the 2004 Summer Olympics, where Cormier went on to a solid finish, but came up just short of a medal.

Cormier won’t refute that, but said there is much more to the story than meets the eye. Instead, it was Cormier trying to get himself mentally prepared for what wrestling in the Olympics would be like – method acting, if you will – that helped put him over the edge.

“This was around 2004. I lost my daughter in 2003, so I was having a whole bunch of personal issues,” Cormier told Shoot Media. “I called my head coach at the time, and I told him the story Pat (has been telling). And he was like, ‘That’s not what happened. What is he talking about? He’s just lying.’

“(We) were simulating the Olympic Games, just as (Cummins) said, and he did beat me in a match. I said, ‘We’re going again.’ The coach told me, ‘No, the Olympics are over for you. You lost.’ That’s what freaked me out, and I ran out. And I did cry. I was pissed off. I had to put myself in the mindset that I was wrestling for an Olympic gold medal and I had given it away. My coach wouldn’t let me get my hands back on him.”

Cormier also is quick to point out that when the two wrestled for real, he came out on top with ease.

“We did compete against each other in reality one time,” he said. “I was at 211 pounds, and he wrestled at heavyweight. He was the No. 3 heavyweight in the country, and I beat him 7-0. So when we really did strap our boots on and wrestled each other, I beat him pretty good.”

Check out the full video above with Cormier and his American Kickboxing Academy coach Javier Mendez.

Then don’t miss Cormier vs. Cummins in the co-main event of UFC 170 on Saturday, which takes place at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas with a main card on pay-per-view.

For the latest on UFC 170, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.