Jon Jones never misses an opportunity to take a shot at his old rival, Daniel Cormier.
The rivalry between all-time greats is one of the best in mixed martial arts (MMA) history, if not the best. Jones and Cormier’s volatility toward each other raised the sport and competitiveness between the two. Despite Jones getting the best of Cormier in their two-fight series with a 1-0, 1 no-contest score, he couldn’t help but recently downplay Cormier’s Light Heavyweight title reign.
Amid his Heavyweight title reign and a Twitter tirade about interim titlist, Tom Aspinall, Jones noted how fans have propped Aspinall up to be more valuable of a title challenger than he is. Even though Aspinall is literally in the position of a guaranteed undisputed title shot, Jones tweeted, “UFC is a brilliant company, did what they had to do to save the [UFC295] event. But I do agree, it definitely confused a bunch of U.K. fans, got them entitled thinking their boy really is the champion. It reminds me of when ‘D.C.’ was the ‘champion’ during my absence.”
Cormier couldn’t help but rebuke Jones’ notion with a splash of comparative truth.
“That’s not a real indication of what was going on,” Cormier responded on his YouTube channel. “Look guys, Jon is out due to injury, so Tom Aspinall is now the champion, I get that. But that’s not what was going on when he and I were fighting. He misrepresented what the situation was. Tom Aspinall isn’t the champion because of his absence, so much, he’s the champion because he was available. Won the belt when Jon got hurt, he beat me, so maybe I wouldn’t have been the champ? But he disqualified himself. It’s two different situations because right now, he injured himself. With me, he got caught doing things he’s not supposed to, and getting taken out of the competition.
“It’s not the same, although it may seem the same,” he continued. “He was incapable of competing when I was the champion. He wasn’t allowed to compete, not due to injury, due to illegal substances found in his body, that’s just the truth. That’s my response. Jones, it wasn’t the same thing, bud. So, no matter how quickly you are, and the magician you are at manipulating and saying this and the other, that’s not the case. It was different, you couldn’t compete whenever I was fighting. You couldn’t, you couldn’t make that decision to go and fight. I was the champion, for a really long time actually, which is kind of crazy.”
Cormier first became a UFC champion when Jones was removed from his UFC 187 Light Heavyweight title defense against Anthony Johnson after his infamous hit-and-run incident with a pregnant woman in early 2015. Consequently, Jones was stripped of his title by UFC. Cormier filled in and submitted Johnson with a third round rear-naked choke for the vacant crown.
The now-color commentator for UFC never technically lost the 205-pound title as he vacated it in 2018 after he won the Heavyweight title that same year. As referenced by Cormier, the second Jones fight initially saw Jones win via a second round knockout until he tested positive for banned substances and had the result overturned to a no contest. Therefore, returning the title to Cormier.