Plenty of fighters publicly criticized UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones for not accepting a last-minute change-of-opponent fight with Chael Sonnen after Dan Henderson pulled out of their scheduled Sep. 1st UFC 151 title fight because of a knee injury but Daniel Cormier added a lil something extra to his. In a recent interview with BJPenn.com, the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix champion said that Jones owed it to the UFC to fight Sonnen and help keep UFC 151 together and also mentioned that he’d be happy to take Jones on himself.
“Right now no one wants to fight Jon Jones, but shit, I’ll do it. I’ll fight Jon Jones,” Cormier said.
“Guys are turning down the fight; you have to go to an old school fighter like Vitor Belfort to step up to the plate. That’s no knock on Machida or Shogun, but if those guys want to coach on The Ultimate Fighter and move off to the side and let me fight Jones, I’ll do it. If no one wants the title shot then give it to Daniel!”
The third-person-speaking Cormier has the speed, power and wrestling to possibly give a fighter like Jones problems. He does not, however, have a reach that would likely daunt the champion.
At 5’11 Cormier would be a very short light heavyweight and would start out each round very far away from Jones’ grill because of “Bones’” record-setting reach. Cormier would be a short 205lber but amazingly fights at heavyweight, a barrier to a future fight with Jones.
The last time of note that Cormier tried to drop weight, at the 2008 Summer Olympics, he nearly killed himself by way of extreme dehydration. The pudgy powerhouse admits that if he is ever to move down a weight class to 205lbs, he’ll need to do it in a smarter way.
“When I went to rehydrate myself, my body started doing weird things,” Cormier recounts of the symptoms stemming from his acute renal failure at the summer games in ’08. “I was throwing up everywhere. I started cramping really bad. Then, I couldn’t walk.
“Listen, I’m a clear thinker and I know that I carry some extra fat and I could probably get to 205 if I needed to,” said Cormier. “But it would have to be a total lifestyle change. I just can’t do it the wrong way anymore.”
For now, Cormier has a huge heavyweight on his hands in former UFC champion Frank Mir as the two are scheduled to lock horns on the October Strikeforce card. Jon Jones will face former light heavyweight champion Vitor Belfort later this month at UFC 152: “We don’t need no stinkin’ 151.”