UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier, who was eagerly anticipating his opportunity to shut up his critics and leave no doubt as to who the “real” UFC 205 pound champion is, was understandably upset upon hearing the news regarding Jon Jones creating a situation that resulted in both fighters being pulled from Saturday’s landmark UFC 200 event.
Not only does Cormier, who lost to Jones in their only previous meeting inside the Octagon in early 2015, no longer have the chance to avenge his only professional MMA loss and unify the UFC Light Heavyweight titles in the process, but he will also lose out on his “early Christmas gift” from Brock Lesnar, as being pulled from the event means he will no longer get profit participation on the back-end of the pay-per-view, a stipulation all champions have in the UFC. With UFC 200 expected to be among — if not the single biggest event in UFC history, one can only assume that Cormier will be missing out on the single biggest payday of his professional fighting career.
Shortly after the news broke regarding Jones’ USADA issues, UFC President Dana White announced that due to the extreme short notice, instead of finding a new opponent to keep Cormier on the card, the promotion instead decided to scrap the fight altogether and simply move Brock Lesnar vs. Mark Hunt to the newly vacant headline spot.
It’s worth noting that UFC contender Gegard Mousasi, who has competed at 185 pounds and 205 pounds during his professional MMA career, offered to step up to fight Cormier in a five-round main event at 205 pounds on just two days notice. As noted, however, the promotion ultimately decided against finding an opponent to keep Cormier on the card.
According to a tweet from the folks at MMAFighting.com, Cormier was quoted as saying the following in response to the news regarding his fight being pulled from UFC 200 just two days before the event:
“This chapter in my life has been dragging on me and it’s making me ugly. I need to move on.”
UFC 200 takes place on Saturday, July 9, 2016 from the brand new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Join us here at MMANews.com this Saturday for live coverage of the UFC 200 event!
