At UFC 226 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, Daniel Cormier made history by knocking out reigning champion Stipe Miocic to become only the fifth two-division champion in UFC history. This achievement ties a bow on a beautiful career and cements Cormier’s status as one of the absolute greatest fighters in sports history. However, it also completes an achievement that Cormier may not even be consciously aware of – it completes the process of stealing Jon Jones’ place in MMA history.

Fans of Jones may initially try to shrug off this assertion, pointing to Jones’ fights against Cormier at UFC 182 and UFC 214 as evidence that Jones still has the superior resume. MMA followers need not be reminded that Jones handed DC Cormier’s first MMA loss in their title fight at UFC 182 in January 2015. Since that night, though, DC has not just been the best fighter in MMA, but has earned that designation by achieving feats that were previously earmarked specifically for Jon Jones.

This trend started not long after Jones-Cormier I in 2015, when Jones had effectively cleared out the Light Heavyweight division with the win over Cormier. As the reigning champion since 2011 Jones had racked up seven consecutive title defenses, and was knocking on the door of Anderson Silva’s then-record 10 defenses. Jones was scheduled to fight the one man left in the division that posed a unique and challenging test: one-punch-knockout artist Anthony "Rumble" Johnson. Instead, Jones was pulled from the card and stripped of his title due to an incident in which he committed a hit-and-run car accident with a pregnant victim.

With Jones out of the picture, it was of course Cormier who took the fight for Jones' vacated title on a month’s notice. Cormier dispatched Rumble in an exciting fight that saw Cormier show off his iron chin by somehow surviving a brutal overhand to the head and recovering to get the third-round submission victory. A few months later, Cormier would fight in his third title fight of 2015, defending against the toughest title challenger from Jones’ reign, Alexander Gustafsson. Gus fought Jones to a brutal five-round decision in 2014, and while Jones did escape with the win, many fans felt Gus should have won on the scorecards, and every fan wanted to see Jones face Gus again on Jones’ road to 10 title defenses. But once again, Jones sat suspended on the sidelines while Cormier was the one who rose to the occasion and defended his title against Gus.

At this point Cormier had fought all three of the best Light Heavyweights in the world in the span of the year 2015. Yet still, many fans did not show Cormier proper respect as champion, insisting that the indefinitely suspended Jones had beaten Cormier and never lost a fight, and therefore was the true champion. Cormier of course embraced the opportunity to settle the rivalry in the cage, and after recovering from a foot injury was scheduled to welcome Jones back from hiatus at UFC 200. In classic Jones fashion, Jones was pulled from the UFC’s anniversary event just three days out from the fight due to failing a drug test for banned hormone and metabolic modulators. While Jones was suspended again and branded as a cheater, Cormier ironically took the opportunity to achieve yet another feat that Jones had had his sights on, and defeated the legendary former Middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Though Silva was no longer the dominant champion that he was when fans clamored for a "super-fight" against Jones in 2013, at this point it was hard not to notice that Cormier was now the one making history.

Cormier went on to smash Rumble Johnson into retirement, while Jones continued to serve out his suspension. With Cormier on a 4-0 tear, and with Jones literally amassing more suspensions than wins since their first bout, Cormier hoped to finally avenge the sole loss on his record in July 2017 at UFC 214.

On the night of the rematch, it seemed that history had again slipped through DC’s fingers. Jones won the fight with a devastating head kick. In his post-fight interview, the triumphant Jones gave props to Cormier, and then turned his attention to superstar Brock Lesnar, calling out the behemoth wrestler for a bout that would mark Jones’s long-awaited foray into the heavyweight division.

But before fans even had time to process Jones’ peculiar phrasing that he beat Cormier "off steroids," (implying that he previously was "on steroids?"), the Jon Jones show took a familiar turn. It turns out Jones was not "off steroids" for the Cormier rematch, and the fight was ruled a No Contest as Jones tested positive for banned anabolic steroids. The Light Heavyweight title was again vacated, and Jones’ move up to Heavyweight and money-fight with Brock Lesnar were set aside as Jones was suspended.

By now, the pattern was familiar to fans. Many former Cormier detractors had come around to admit that Jones was an all-time great fighter, but one who could not get out of his own way. Meanwhile Cormier no longer seemed like a second-fiddle to Jones, but instead had established himself as the consistent rock who could not be budged from the top of the UFC’s 205-pound division.

Yet still, even with the loss to Jones erased by drug tests, even with the win over Silva, and even with DC’s dominant 4-0 record as UFC Champion, until his win at UFC 226 Cormier was missing a trademark achievement. Now he has earned it in the most stylish fashion possible. By moving up to challenge Stipe Miocic at Heavyweight, DC literally conquered the greatest-ever champion in UFC’s biggest division. Indeed, Stipe’s record three title defenses make him the longest-reigning and most dominant champion in UFC heavyweight history. Odds-makers favored the defending champion and had Cormier as an underdog at about +200. At age 39, with his family in attendance, Daniel Cormier scored an improbable first-round knockout over Miocic to make history.

And unlike UFC’s other recent "double champions" Conor McGregor and Georges St-Pierre, Cormier plans to stick around and stay active (at least until March 2019, as Cormier plans to retire for his 40th birthday at that time). And in a final ironic twist of fate, Cormier’s first opponent will be a lucrative matchup with the very superstar that Jones himself aspired to fight next – Brock Lesnar.

For years, fans lamented that Cormier would never be able to escape the shadow of Jon Jones. But now that it is Cormier who dominated the Light Heavyweight division from 2015 onwards, and Cormier who won a bout with Anderson Silva at a marquee UFC anniversary event, and Cormier who knocked out the greatest Heavyweight champion ever to become a double champion, and Cormier who will benefit from the publicity of a mega-fight with Brock Lesnar, DC has not only escaped Jones’ shadow, but cast his own shadow over this era of MMA history.