UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones has claimed he never envisioned losing to bitter rival Daniel Cormier across their two-fight series. However, he admitted he had never felt so personally invested in a fight in the promotion as he did in those two.
Jones, a former light heavyweight champion, twice took on fellow former two-weight champion Cormier during their respective Octagon tenures, managing to go unbeaten against the Hall of Fame inductee.
First sharing the cage back in 2015, Jones would hand Cormier his first defeat in combat sports, landing a one-sided unanimous decision win over the challenger to defend his light heavyweight crown.
However, just two years later, Rochester native Jones came under severe scrutiny. Blasting Cormier with a stunning high-kick for a knockout win in their title unification rematch, Jones would prevail. But just weeks later, he was stripped of his crown after testing positive for the banned substance, Turinabol.
And in the time since, Jones and Louisiana wrestling ace Cormier have not seen eye to eye — despite recent efforts from the latter to quash their beef in recent months. Reflecting on his infamous feud with Cormier this week during an interview on DeepCuts with VicBlends, Jones claimed the pairings brought out the worst in him in the process.
“Daniel Cormier and I — I swear like he’s aged me in a certain way,” Jones said.
“Like I fight out of love. I do what I do surely out of love. I love this gift. Um, the opportunity, the fans, the money, everything. I just love it, he continued, elaborating that Cormier simply brought out a different side to him.
“Um, but with Daniel Cormier, I think there was a hatred that came out for the first time. Where I just couldn’t imagine losing to this man. And I mean I remember I got extra workouts on Christmas Day just because I hated him at the time so much. And I couldn’t imagine losing to him,” the UFC heavyweight champion revealed.
Although it worked, Jones admits that he doesn’t want to work with that energy ever again.
However, stoking the flames on their longstanding beef earlier this month, too, Jones goaded Cormier about his pair of winless outings against him.
Jones boasts about Cormier’s victory
Following their battles at the 205 lbs limit, both Jones and Cormier eventually moved on to the heavyweight division. Cormier notably won the heavyweight title by defeating Stipe Miocic at UFC 226 and became one of the only four promotional double champions.
Interestingly, during this time, Jones had claimed that he would not want to face DC at the heavyweight limit — such was the former Olympian’s dominance.
However, goading the former two-weight champion this month, Jones boldly claimed Cormier was lucky to run into him at 205 lbs. As far as former pound-for-pound number one, Jones is concerned, he would beat Cormier at heavyweight and in a far worse fashion.
“And I feel like my speed has transferred over in a way that his hasn’t. I think I beat him up pretty worse at heavyweight. I kick harder, I even punch harder as a heavyweight. But I kick a lot harder. Ya’ll see what my kicks did to him in the (second) fight,” Jones bragged in an interview with Geoffrey Woo.
In response, Cormier has asked Jones to first go fight the only guy calling him out — interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall.
