Daniel Cormier has some experience in heavyweight tournaments run by Scott Coker.

So just because Cormier is the UFC’s light heavyweight champion, and one of the promotion’s lead broadcast analysts at pay-per-view events and for the FOX networks, don’t expect him to turn a blind eye to Bellator’s current heavyweight grand prix just because it’s a competing promotion.

Bellator earlier this month had the first of four quarterfinal fights in its heavyweight tournament, which will run throughout 2018. The plan is for the final to take place by year’s end, and the winner will be Bellator’s new heavyweight champion.

The field is made up of four legit heavyweights (Fedor Emelianenko, Frank Mir, Matt Mitrione and Roy Nelson), but also of four fighters who either are light heavyweights, or spent much of their career in that division: current champ Ryan Bader, Quinton Jackson, Muhammed Lawal and Chael Sonnen.

At Bellator 192, Sonnen topped Jackson to move on to the semifinals, where he’ll meet the winner of the upcoming fight between Emelianenko and Mir, who fight in late April, later this year.

Cormier (20-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) said in the days after his TKO win over Volkan Oezdemir (15-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC) in the UFC 220 co-main event the same night Sonnen beat Jackson, the two talked on the phone about each others’ fights.

“It’s very impressive – I’m excited,” Cormier recently told MMAjunkie Radio of Bellator’s tournament. “I’m happy for Chael. … He texted me telling me congratulations (for beating Oezdemir), and I go, ‘No, bud – after what you did last weekend, this warrants a telephone call.’

“So me and Chael talked for 30 minutes because I’m so happy and proud of him for going out there and getting the job done. And ‘Rampage’ looked big. ‘Rampage,’ in the pictures, he looked super in-shape, and in the fight he just looked massive. I was like, ‘Wow, this dude’s big.’ Chael went out there and did his thing. I’m so happy for Chael – he deserves to win.”

In 2011, Cormier was tossed into the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix as an injury replacement and beat Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. Coker, now Bellator’s president, was running Strikeforce at the time. Cormier went on to the final and beat Josh Barnett before eventually moving on to the UFC in the promotions’ merger in 2013.

As an analyst, Cormier said he’s looking forward to the Mir-Emelianenko fight at Bellator’s event in the Chicago area in late April. But he also wishes an upcoming fight between light heavyweight champ Bader and Lawal had more at stake than just a spot in the semifinals.

(Bear in mind, Cormier has some history with Bader before Bader left the UFC for Bellator. After Cormier won the title for the first time at UFC 187, Bader interrupted his post-fight news conference to challenge him. The bad blood never got settled before Bader changed promotions as a free agent.)

“I want ‘Mo’ to go out there and really take it to Ryan Bader,” Cormier said. “I wish they could make that for the title, though – why can’t they just make that, inside their tournament, for the light heavyweight championship?”

Alas, if Lawal wins, Bader still will be the 205-pound champion, and “King Mo” will move on in an attempt to become the heavyweight king.

To hear more from Cormier, check out the video above.

And for more on the upcoming Bellator and UFC schedules, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.

MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Dan Tom. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.