Jon Jones is all for a trilogy fight against former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champ-champ Daniel Cormier, but only if it happens at Light Heavyweight. “Bones” already has two clear-cut victories over “DC” at 205-pounds, so moving up to face the current Heavyweight champion in his natural domain, simply isn’t the cards.
According to Luke Rockhold — Cormier’s training partner — if Jones really wants to prove himself as the best, he needs to face Daniel in the land of the big men without the aid of any type of performance enhancing drug.
“Jones does not want that fight. He doesn’t want a fight with ‘DC’ at Heavyweight. He doesn’t want to give him any confidence. He’s obviously taken what he can to build his confidence to fight him at Light Heavyweight. We all know he’s tested dirty twice in a row now or three times, I don’t know what it is,” said Luke on The MMA Hour.
“Picograms, or whatever the hell they are. He is obviously compensating for something trying to build himself up. ‘DC’ at heavyweight is a much more dangerous fighter; he’s looser, moving people, I’ve seen him in the gym. Jones picked his words wisely on trying to bait ‘DC’ on trying to come back down,” he added.
In Luke’s eyes, fighting at their natural weight will really prove who the baddest man on the planet is. But if Jon opts not to pack on the pounds, he can stay put as the current Light Heavyweight champion and Luke will gladly come to him.
“Jones walks around 240 and ‘DC’ walks around 240, fight where you are, fight where you are naturally. If you’re the baddest man on the planet, stop trying to pick off guys like Anthony Smith and lets stop talking about ‘DC’ the champ-champ and go up to fight him where he’s at, where he is the baddest man on the planet. If you want to talk about it, go up and fight him go up to where he’s at, otherwise stay where you are at and I will come to you.”
For now, Jones is expected to defend his 205-pound strap against Anthony Smith at UFC 235 on March 2, 2019, which will be just three months after reclaiming it by knocking out Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 232.
As for Cormier, he’s still holding out for Brock Lesnar…or Stipe Miocic.