OKLAHOMA CITY – While Strikeforce’s final months of operations will a likely be remembered as a sort of slow march to the pasture, a few of its athletes now stand to make huge strides in their MMA career. Daniel Cormier (11-0 MMA, 8-0 SF) is certainly one of them.

However, Cormier wants to make one thing perfectly clear: While he believes an octagon debut at UFC on FOX 7 against Frank Mir makes all the sense in the world, nothing is yet set in stone.

“Nothing’s been signed,” Cormier said at Saturday’s night’s post-fight press conference for “Strikeforce: Marquardt vs. Saffiedine,” which took place at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City. “This is just what I’ve said in my ideal universe, that’s what would happen as this year goes on. It could not happen; if it doesn’t, I’ll just keep on plugging away.”

While no bouts have been announced for the card, UFC on FOX 7 takes place April 20 in Cormier’s backyard of San Jose, Calif.

Cormier, of course, was supposed to face Mir at Saturday’s event before injury forced the former UFC heavyweight champ out of the bout and allowed relative unknown Dion Staring to step in as a warm body across the cage. Cormier’s vaunted wrestling attack and pressure game left Staring overwhelmed from the start, though the Austrian did prove himself to be a tough character in lasting until the latter stages of the second round before finally succumbing to a TKO finish.

It was a fight that admittedly had the potenital for more downside than up for Cormier, but the American Kickboxing Academy product said there were a few valuable lessons to take from the entire experience.

“I think it kind of went exactly as we thought,” Cormier said. “I wanted to wrestle with him and get him tired. I’ve got a great jiu-jitsu coach now, but I won’t give up position for a submission yet. So I just kind of rode him and when he got up, let him get up a little bit and then take him back down to wear on him a little bit. Not many guys can stay with that wrestling pace of up and down, up and down, up and down. He was a tough guy, though – he was real tough.

“What I take from this fight is, when everybody was looking past him, I was able to keep my focus on taking care of tonight and not looking at the bigger picture. I got a lot of, ‘You’re looking past this guy and to the UFC,’ and everything, when the reality is I wasn’t. I was just answering a lot of the questions that were asked of me. Even in a situation where most people around me may not think there’s much to gain, I can maintain complete focus on that task and get through it, get through it healthy and put on a pretty good performance.”

Of course, when Cormier took to the mic following his win, he didn’t just call out Mir. No, Cormier is already planning more than one fight into the future, and he’s not limiting himself to one division. The undefeated 33-year-old, who weighed 230 pounds for his fight with Staring, also said he’d like to face UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones in late 2013.

Cormier said there was a method to his madness, and some of it had to do with avoiding a fight with a hero of his, Dan Henderson.

“The reason I said I’d fight [Jones] in the fall is I’d need some time to get that weight down,” Cormier admitted. “I’m comfortable at 230 right now, but that’s still 25 more pounds. I’d need some time to make weight and I don’t want to fight (next) at 205 because I don’t want to fight Dan Henderson. I’ve kind of got a man-crush on Dan Henderson.”

Henderson, a former Strikeforce and PRIDE champion, currently has a UFC 157 headlining bout with Lyoto Machida next month. “Hendo” is considered one of the UFC’s top light heavyweights and would likely stand between Cormier and Jones should “D.C” make an immediate switch to 205 pounds.

And so Cormier will keep his sights set on Mir until the UFC tells him otherwise. After all, the story does seem to write itself.

“Most of the other guys are tied up, and pretty much everyone is scheduled in the division,” Cormier said. “Why not? We were supposed to fight already. It’s a good fight, and I think people would watch the fight. We could sell the fight, Frank and I, and make some money.”

In fact, as far as Cormier is concerned, it’s (practically) a done deal.

“I have a fight scheduled April 20 against Frank Mir,” Cormier told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I should probably take a couple weeks off and then start training again. But when I’m taking a couple weeks off, I’ve got to be running and still working, so I’ll get right back to work and put in about eight weeks for him and then hopefully get through the fight healthy with him.

“This is a great situation for me because now I get to fight more than once in a year. So I’m excited.”

For complete coverage of “Strikeforce: Marquardt vs. Saffiedine,” stay tuned to the MMA Events section of the site.