Jon Jones may not like Daniel Cormier very much but he’s smart enough to respect his skills.
For all the disdain that’s shared between the reigning UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champions, Jones and Cormier both have a begrudging respect for each other when it comes to what they can do inside the Octagon.
Jones has gotten the better of Cormier in the past and he’s largely discounted facing his most heated rival again before he retires. That said, Jones moving to heavyweight to challenge for a second world title would seem to be a scenario interesting enough to get him to consider another fight against Cormier.
Well it turns out Jones has enough respect for Cormier to admit that moving to heavyweight to face him would give the two-time Olympic wrestler a bigger advantage in the fight and he’s not willing to concede that to him in any way, shape or form.
I’m a realist. Daniel Cormier’s a special athlete and everyone can be beat and I think my greatest chance of losing would be to a guy like Daniel Cormier with giving him a power and strength advantage over me,” Jones said when speaking to UFC color commentator Dan Hardy. “It just doesn’t make sense.
“Right now, I make light heavyweight very easily and it would just make no sense to fight a guy who technically on your level, to give him a size advantage, I’m not doing it. I’m sure my fans don’t like to hear me talk like that but that’s just me being a realist and being respectful to Daniel’s abilities.”
Cormier has also scoffed at the idea of facing Jones at heavyweight because he says his pursuit of a third fight would be based around avenging his previous defeats.
The only way to do that in Cormier’s mind would be defeating Jones on his home turf at 205 pounds, but the incumbent light heavyweight champion just doesn’t see that ever happening again.
“He’s definitely never coming back to light heavyweight,” Jones said about Cormier. “He says it but there’s no way he’s coming to light heavyweight. To commit your life to lose that type of weight and to come up short again would be so devastating.
“It would take an incredible amount of courage to attempt it and to come up short would just be so devastating. I doubt he’d put himself through that for the third time.”
