It’s time Daniel Cormier predicts the winner of the awaited Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson main event at UFC 232.
Cormier will meet knockout striker Derrick Lewis in the main event of next week’s (Sat., November 3, 2018) UFC 230 from New York. But the focus of the double champ’s career seems to be looking towards his expected fight with Brock Lesnar.
Even better yet, even a potential trilogy fight with Jones. The UFC will strip Cormier’s light heavyweight title the moment Jones vs. Gustafsson II begins.
He isn’t necessarily happy about it, but Cormier is the consummate company man. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be fighting “The Black Beast” on short notice next weekend. He’s often discussed retiring after two more fights. Many fans feel it would be a shame if he never got to face his biggest rival Jones again. “Bones” beat Cormier by decision at UFC 182 and then knocked him out at UFC 217. He failed a drug test, however, putting the bout’s result in question.
Cormier’s Prediction
So Jones will have to make it to the fight, beat Gustafsson, and stay clean to have a shot at facing “DC” again. “Bones” obviously beat “The Mauler” once before in their classic first fight at September 2013’s UFC 165. Cormier told Luke Thomas on this week’s edition of The MMA Hour that he predicts his enemy to do the same in his latest return fight:
“I think Jones wins the fight,” Cormier said. “I’ve never once shied away from the fact that he’s a fantastic fighter. He’s a really talented guy. And it seems, I mean, obviously he can go with me and keep up with me, so he obviously has been putting in a lot of hard work, so he must be a hard worker in that sense.
“And I know that Alex, for as good as he is, too, because he’s a good fighter, the only thing with Alex is he’s struggled in those big moments and this is a really, really big moment, and he’s going to have to fight to his level or above his level to try and win. The major issue is that Jones … he fought, I think, maybe more recently than Gustafsson did. That’s a crazy factor.”
Cormier rose to historic levels this summer by knocking out former heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic at July’s UFC 226. considering Jones’ two prior wins over ‘DC,’ you could make a case that was supposed to be Jones’ fight. But Cormier has made the biggest accomplishments of his career off of Jones’ mistakes. You can’t blame for something he cannot control.
Praise For Jones?
Jones’ outside-the-cage issues with drugs both recreational and performance-enhancing seems to be his biggest issue. Jones has obviously been peerless in terms of skill in the cage. Cormier admitted his intelligence and ability in MMA was insane:
“He’s a very smart guy,” Cormier said of Jones. “He works and he makes adjustments very well in there, and obviously it showed with him landing that kick. And it wasn’t even the kick. I mean, the kick hurt, it really put me on beat street, but it wasn’t even the kick. It was the finishing sequence. He’s one of those guys that, when he gets an opponent hurt, he has a really, really good ability to go find the finish.”
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