Now that Jon Jones has retired, Daniel Cormier wants him out of the headlines.
After a long wait of contemplating whether or not to fight Tom Aspinall in a title-unification bout, Jones opted to relinquish his UFC heavyweight title and retire from MMA. However, it didn’t take long for Jones to potentially change his tune as he claimed to have already re-entered the UFC drug testing pool and expressed interest in competing at the UFC’s planned event at the White House.
Cormier is not a fan of Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) trying to stay relevant in the headlines, comparing him to Conor McGregor (22-6 MMA, 10-4 UFC), who also threw his name in the hat to fight at the White House. McGregor hasn’t competed since July 2021.
“Jon Jones and I don’t see eye to eye in most instances,” Cormier said on “Good Guy/Bad Guy” with Chael Sonnen. “And, boy, he’s been great for my YouTube here this last couple months. Him flopping all over the place has been great for my YouTube. But please don’t become what Conor has become in the media. Every time a big story breaks, Conor’s like, ‘I’m back,’ or ‘I’m doing this.’
“Don’t do that. Don’t try to make it about you when you voluntarily walked away from this. Conor didn’t voluntarily walk away. Conor got hurt, and he left. He just hasn’t come back. Jones voluntarily said ‘I’m done.’ So now that he’s done, don’t try to make these stories about you whenever you’re a guy that’s supposed to have walked away from the game.”
McGregor has been linked to numerous fights ever since breaking his leg in a TKO loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264. He was scheduled to return against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 in June 2024 but withdrew due to a broken pinky toe. He has not been scheduled for a bout since.
