LAS VEGAS — Stipe Mio­cic defeat­ed Daniel Cormi­er by unan­i­mous deci­sion in a five-round bout Sat­ur­day night to win the rub­ber match in a fan­tas­tic tril­o­gy between the fight­ers and retain his heavy­weight cham­pi­onship at UFC 252.

Mio­cic (20–3) swept the score­cards 49–46, 49–46 and 48–47 to stake his claim as per­haps the great­est heavy­weight in UFC history.

“I’m hap­py to cement my lega­cy,” Mio­cic said.

Mio­cic tagged Cormi­er with a vicious poke to his left eye late in the third round that sent the chal­lenger stag­ger­ing to his cor­ner. Cormier’s eye was about swollen shut, but he game­ly fought on the final two rounds in the main event of UFC 252 at the UFC APEX com­plex in Las Vegas

“I can’t see any­thing out of my left eye,” Cormi­er said. “It’s black.”

Mio­cic said he apol­o­gized to Cormi­er for the poke.

“I total­ly poked him in the eye, my bad,” Mio­cic said.

Cormi­er was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal after the bout. There was no imme­di­ate word about his condition.

The 41-year-old Cormi­er (22–3, 1 NC) is a for­mer two-divi­sion cham­pi­on and has already cement­ed his sta­tus as one of the great­est pound-for-pound fight­ers in UFC his­to­ry. The ami­able Cormi­er, who has found his niche as a suc­cess­ful broad­cast­er, had vowed to retire after Sat­ur­day and end a career in which 10 of his last 11 fights were fought with a cham­pi­onship on the line.

Cormi­er said he stood by his deci­sion to retire. He won the first fight between the two but dropped two straight to Miocic.

“I’m not inter­est­ed in fight­ing for any­thing but titles and I don’t imag­ine there’s going to be a title in the future,” Cormi­er said. “That will be it for me. I’ve had a long run, it’s been great, I just fought my last fight for a heavy­weight cham­pi­onship and it was a pret­ty good fight.”

UFC Pres­i­dent Dana White had said Fran­cis Ngan­nou was next in line for a heavy­weight title shot.

“Great per­for­mance to both guys. … Con­grats to Stipe on the per­for­mance. See you soon,” Ngan­nou tweeted.

Jon Jones, the reign­ing UFC light heavy­weight cham­pi­on, tried to stir the pot on social media by teas­ing a chal­lenge to Miocic.

“Heavy­weight world cham­pi­onships I will be see­ing you real soon. Vic­to­ri­ous,” Jones tweeted.

Mio­cic near­ly got the fin­ish at the end of the sec­ond round and had Cormi­er in trou­ble until time ran out.

“One hun­dred per­cent I would have fin­ished him,” Mio­cic said.

Cormi­er knocked out Mio­cic at UFC 226 in the first round in their 2018 bout to win the heavy­weight belt. Mio­cic defeat­ed Cormi­er last August in the rematch at UFC 241.

The win­ner of this bout could make an argu­ment as the great­est heavy­weight cham­pi­on in UFC his­to­ry. Mio­cic has plen­ty left in the tank to keep cement­ing his lega­cy as the best big man UFC has seen inside the cage.

“Great heavy­weight fight!! #UFC252 #Team­Stipe,” Lak­ers star LeBron James tweeted.

Cormi­er fin­ished with a 1–2 mark against Mio­cic and a los­ing mark against Jones. Cormi­er lost both fights to Jones, though the sec­ond one was over­turned when Jones failed a dop­ing test. The result was changed to a no contest.

Mio­cic, who con­tin­ues to work shifts for the Val­ley View (Ohio) Fire Depart­ment, has won eight of his last night fights.

“I don’t get any spe­cial treat­ment,” Mio­cic said. “I’m just one of the dudes.”

The only thing miss­ing was the crowd. UFC hasn’t missed a beat dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and con­tin­ued to run some of its most suc­cess­ful shows over the last few years. But no doubt a packed and crazed crowd would have added anoth­er dimen­sion to the epic tril­o­gy. White said UFC will return to Fight Island in Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island.

“I don’t see fans hap­pen­ing any time soon,” White said. “I’m not even think­ing about it.”