UFC f ight pits hostile rivals
Cormier and Jones to continue their animosities in title bout Saturday.
Daniel Cormier says that although he usually agrees with the thinking that people shouldn’t judge one another, he can’t find a way to let that apply to rival Jon Jones.
A year ago this month, Jones tested positive for a banned substance with performance-enhancing effects that forced him off the UFC 200 main event on fight week, depriving Cormier of an estimated $1 million in purse money.
“When these actions continue to happen and directly affect me, why should I hold my tongue?” Cormier said. “I should be able to say and do as I please, because he does. These are my words versus his actions. If my words hurt him, imagine how his actions feel for me.”
Jones’ reluctance to accept responsibility, by Cormier’s standards, and his ongoing exchanges with Cormier on social media have further inflamed hostilities as they head to Saturday’s UFC 214 main event at Honda Center for the UFC light-heavyweight championship.
San Jose’s Cormier (19-1) is seeking to cement his standing as champion. He has won three title fights and had a nontitle victory over former long-reigning middleweight champion Anderson Silva in the Jones replacement fight. The 30year-old former champion Jones (22-1) has staggered through a slew of problems outside the octagon and fought only once since defeating Cormier by unanimous decision Jan. 3, 2015.
Jones was found to have submitted a positive test for cocaine in the weeks before defeating Cormier. He had a one-day visit to rehab. Then, in April 2015, he plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a sentence of 18 months probation after running a red light and hitting the car of a pregnant woman.
After the sentence, the UFC stripped him of his belt.
A victory over Ovince Saint Preux in April 2016 was followed by the positive test in July, which prompted a one-year suspension.
Cormier admits he’s nagged by the question that hovers over this fight.
“If Jon Jones never would’ve done his thing, would I have been the UFC champion?” Cormier said. “You don’t know.”
Cormier credits a principled, disciplined lifestyle for shaping who he is and leading him to the 2004 Olympic Games, where he reached the bronze medal match in wrestling. It also helped him to endure the heartbreak of losing his father, Joseph, who was murdered when Cormier was 7.
That attitude paved the way for Cormier’s rise as a pro fighter. Seven years ago, Cormier and his wife, Selena, lived in a small apartment with their two children, relying on public assistance and food stamps to get by.
Cormier successfully defended his UFC belt in April by overwhelming powerful striker Anthony Johnson, but it’s the loss to Jones that still haunts him.
“What I had to go through wasn’t easy,” Cormier said. “I locked myself in the room, watched the fight, I cried. For weeks, I mourned it almost like a death. I needed to. I needed to feel that bad because I never want to feel that way again. … But then you feel yourself coming around. Suddenly, you only need 30 minutes to deal with it, not all day. You want to play with the kids.”
The contrast between his winding journey to the top of the UFC versus Jones’ meteoric rise from a middleclass two-parent household in upstate New York that has produced two NFL players affects Cormier’s life profoundly.
He catches himself wondering, “Why am I so disappointed in [Jones]?
“If he throws it away, he throws it away … but, honestly, if we weren’t where we are today, there are a lot of [life lessons] I could give to him so he could be a better version of himself.”
Cormier said he has found an appreciation during his reign for what Jones, who won the belt at 23 and successfully defended it eight times, navigated.
“Being the champion is hard. I told [UFC President] Dana [White] last year that I can sympathize more with Jon now. I see all the traps, the excess … from girls to new friends,” Cormier said. “But I [first] dealt with it as a 36-year-old man. He was a 23-year-old kid and it became a part of who he was.”
Cormier doesn’t question if Jones can revert to the dominant, versatile champion he was after only one fight over 30-plus months.
“He wants to be champion. He doesn’t want to lose to me. He’ll be motivated for the fight,” Cormier said. “UFC champion is part of the definition of who we’ve come to know as Jon Jones. Who exactly he is outside of that? His identity is tied to the belt, but it’s a double-edged sword because [of] everything that comes in being the UFC champ — the fame, the money, the excess.”