Daniel Cormier can’t help but feel bad for his rival, Jon Jones, amid his UFC dispute.
Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) wanted to compete at the White House event on June 14, but when the card was announced, his name was not included. Dana White insists Jones was never in consideration, a claim Jones took umbrage with. The former heavyweight champion claims he was lowballed by the UFC during negotiations.
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With current heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall recovering from double eye surgery, the UFC opted to book Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane for the interim title in the UFC Freedom 250 co-main event. While Cormier understands Jones’ frustration, he also sees why White wanted no part of Jones for their historic event.
“I kind of felt bad for him,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “I felt bad for Jon because it just seemed like he wanted to fight on that card bad. Think about this, and I’ve said this time and time again: I think Jon got to fight Stipe (Miocic) because he goes, ‘Give me this legacy one, and I’ll give you the Aspinall fight.’ Then he reneged. He’s like, ‘I’m retired.’ Then he goes, ‘I kind of want to fight at the White House.’
“I think this is kind of like a come-to-Jesus moment. At 28, 29, no matter what you did, when he got that event canceled with Chael, they said he’ll never headline again. But he was selling pay-per-views, so you had to go back to him. But at 38, 39, he’s got bad hips and injuries, and it looks like he’s on his way out. They’re kind of like, ‘You’re not going to prove value to me in the long term, so I don’t think we need to bend over for you anymore.’ It’s crazy.”
White went as far as saying Jones is done after it was revealed he’s dealing with severe arthritis in his hip.
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“That’s not the first time he’s (White) said anything derogatory about him,” Cormier said. “It’s hard to get that upset when someone’s actually shown you that behavior before, but right now it seems like it just really bothered him that he was getting called a liar. I’ve called him everything. He’s been called negative stuff for years, and now it’s like this thing bothered him. I honestly think maybe it was because the White House thing meant something to him.”
Jones asked for his release, but Cormier doubts that happens.
“There’s no way you can release Jones because then if Jones and Francis (Ngannou) can be made outside of the UFC, that’s you giving someone power,” Cormier said. “You can’t let him go. There’s no way that he could actually fight anywhere else or be released. No, I don’t think he’s getting released.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC Freedom 250: Daniel Cormier ‘kind of felt bad’ for Jon Jones
