Daniel Cormier on responding to recent Jon Jones comments: “It’d be like glorifying Lance Armstrong”
Last week the UFC social media staff posed a question in a tweet sent out in promoting the upcoming superfight for the UFC 226 Heavyweight Championship bout between reigning champion Stipe Miocic and light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier.
The tweet discussed whether Daniel Cormier would become “The GOAT” by beating Stipe Miocic at UFC 226.
While most people in the MMA community were pondering to themselves about the possibility of this being true, there was one man trying to figure out why the question would even be asked in the first place. That man is Daniel Cormier’s greatest enemy in all of mixed martial arts and the only man to ever defeat him not once, but twice (although the second loss will be erased in the record books). He is none other than former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon “Bones” Jones.
Moments after the GOAT tweet was posted, Jones immediately responded, stating that if Cormier’s “in the conversation” for Greatest Of All Time, then “Bones” must be “the motherf**king man.”
Not backing down from his adversary, Cormier also responded, although this time he’s taken a more composed approach. When talking to CBS Sports Cormier stated that since Jones isn’t in the sport right now, he’s not worth a rebuttal. He even went so far as to compare Jones to another athlete with a history of substance problems, legendary biker Lance Armstrong.
“[Jones] doesn’t have a platform and I refuse to give him a platform,” Cormier said. “He’s a nobody. He has been suspended again. He’s mired in controversy for drug abuse. Your issues are tied to steroids, performance enhancers. You don’t get a platform when you’re like that. It’s like me glorifying Lance Armstrong.”
Jones is serving a provisional suspension currently from USADA and is awaiting a ruling of how long he’ll be away from MMA after failing a drug test not too long after his epic knockout of Cormier in a rematch at UFC 214.
Cormier claims because of that drug test he failed along with Jones other recent issues with USADA has been enough to to garner doubt over just how legitimate their first bout was, which resulted in a unanimous decision win for Jones at UFC 182.
“[Jones] won the fight but, hey, since USADA has gotten involved with the UFC, he only fought one time,” Cormier said. “He has had four fights scheduled. So, he fought Ovince and he fought me but that second one was a no-contest. The Ovince fight was the only time he fought and there was no controversy surrounding it. So, I’m pretty sure there was some dirty stuff going on [in our first fight]. That’s why the test results were all jacked up in December.”
If DC is able to pull off the upset victory against Miocic at UFC 226, not only will he have two belts in his possession, but he’ll also have the unenviable task of having to defend both of those belts with such a limited amount of time before his 40th birthday comes.
Another harsh reality of that scenario will be that he possibly won’t get another chance to avenge the one loss to the man that has haunted him his entire MMA career, Jon Jones.
But in Cormier’s mind he’s at peace with that reality as he says he’s got more important things to concern himself with.
“This whole Jon Jones thing has been marred in controversy and never on my behalf,” Cormier said. “So I can’t let that dictate how I approach my career in any way, shape or form. I didn’t do those bad things. I didn’t do steroids. I didn’t get taken out of a fight for steroid abuse once and test positive for steroids a second time. I didn’t get, before the first fight, having rinky-dinky tests to start. There are so many reasons why I shouldn’t be tied to him anymore and I’ve gotten back to the point now where it doesn’t affect me.”
