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UFC 200 is now less than two weeks away, and serves as one of the most highly anticipated cards of the year. The main event pits bitter rivals Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones against each other in a light-heavyweight title unification bout. In continuation of a feud that dates back to ‘DC’s’ Strikeforce days, and includes the UFC 178 media day brawl and ‘death threats’ video, ‘Bones’ and Cormier will tangle in a rematch of their UFC 182 battle. Jones came away from that 2015 meeting with his belt intact, but in just over a year a lot has changed.

After his New Mexico hit-and-run saga saw Jones stripped of the championship, Cormier took hold of the division with a UFC 187 submission win over Anthony Johnson. The two were still beefing hard throughout Jones’ absence, and Cormier defended the belt successfully at UFC 192 before Jones was reinstated by the promotion. Now scheduled for a July 9 do-over, we’ve perhaps seen a toned down version of their contention, at least in comparison to Jones and Cormier’s infamous history.

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Jones even recently stated that Rashad Evans is in fact his biggest rival, but there’s someone else out there, who happens to be a UFC referee, that has ‘Bones” attention right now. John McCarthy is that man, as Jones told media during a recent press luncheon that he hopes ‘Big John’ will step down from his refereeing duties for the UFC 200 main event. McCarthy was announced by the Nevada Commission last week to officiate Cormier vs. Jones 2, and the interim boss is not happy. As per MMAFighting.com:

“I would prefer any other referee but him. It’s been a mixture of many things throughout the years,” Jones said. “Just the energy. I don’t feel like we have the best energy. It’s an accumulation of some of the things that happened during some fights and just personal interactions. I just don’t feel as, you don’t need anything stacking up against you when you’re fighting a great fighter like DC.”

“He [officiates] probably once a week somewhere,” Jones said. “For me, this is my life, this is my story, this is my legacy. This is everything to me, and if I don’t agree with his energy that he brings to the fight, if I was him, I wouldn’t want to be a part of it. You know what I mean? If you’re not welcome, why would you even want to be part of someone’s big night who doesn’t want you there. I would say, ‘you know, I’ll back out of this one, I don’t need to be a part of this one.’”

Cormier himself is no stranger to taking a dislike to a certain style of reffing, as he put in an appeal to have Herb Dean removed as referee from UFC 197. ‘DC’ was originally scheduled to face Jones in the main event before dropping out injured. In an interview with Matt Serra and Jim Norton, the light-heavyweight boss said Jones needs to ‘nut up’ over his issue with McCarthy:

“I think John McCarthy is a guy that is a great referee. He’s a guy that he’s kind of in the fight. You feel like there’s a third guy. Herb will get out of the way. In some instances you need a ref that will just stay out of the way, he’s just there to protect you. But John does interject himself into the fight some with the open hands and certain things that Jones kind of does consistently. So I guess that may be where his complaints come from but I’m not exactly sure.”

“I’m fine with John McCarthy. I would have been fine with Herb Dean again because as a man when I said that about Herb Dean on a conference call, I will tell you I didn’t know that was going out audio to everybody. I thought it was just me talking to the commission. But afterwards…I felt the need to reach out and say, ‘If I have a gripe I should be able to tell it to you.’ So I ended up talking to Herb Dean and he was gonna get one of the commissioners on the phone so that we could discuss everything, so that he could hear my complaint.

“Every referee has something that they do that someone will not agree with…Look April 23rd, if Herb Dean would have been the official I would’ve had to just nut up and deal with it. And that is exactly what Jones is gonna have to do on July 9.” Quotes from MMAFighting‘s Jed Meshew

The post Jon Jones Says UFC 200 Referee ‘Not Welcome,’ Daniel Cormier Responds appeared first on LowKick MMA.

You know they say Donald Cerrone will fight anyone…

The Jackson-Wink gym in Albuquerque, New Mexico is known as one of the most successful in modern mixed martial arts. Having trained such talents as former champions Holly Holm, Jon Jones, Rashad Evans, Andrei Arlovski, Frank Mir and Georges St-Pierre, Jackson’s has seen some of the best competition at the peak of their fighting careers pass through the doors and hit the mats. Former lightweight title contender and current UFC welterweight Donald Cerrone also spends his camps at Jackson-Wink, and has most recently been training UFC legend BJ Penn for his UFC 199 comeback.

With so many high calibre fighters, often competing in the same weight classes, partners in the gym have to face the reality of fighting each other soon enough Rashad Evans and Jon Jones had a massive feud, eventually leading to ‘Suga’ leaving the ABQ gym and joining the Blackzilians. Alisair Overeem recently knocked out Andrei Arlovski at UFC Rotterdam, but reports indicate both men will remain at Jackson-Wink. Two fighters you might not expect to have beef are ‘Cowboy’ and ‘Bones,’ but it happened according to Cerrone.

Speaking during a recent podcast episode of ‘Fighter and The Kid,’ the entertaining Donald Cerrone told a tale of a time he had beef with ex-UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. As transcribed by FOX Sports:

“Me and him have plenty of disputes all the time. We almost had at it, him and I at Jackson’s,” Cerrone said. “This is before all the wild Jon (stuff) came out and I spoke about him being wild and he was like ‘what the (expletive) with you putting me out like that?’ and I was like ‘what’s up mother (expletive)?’ but that’s behind the scenes.”

“What had happened was all the UFC cameras were there that day and I came at Jon like ‘what’s up?’ and he comes at me, puts his God hat on and got to work. He just said ‘Cowboy, I just don’t understand, I’m so nice to you, always try to help you and this is how you treat me, this is how you want to come at me? I remember pointing at him like ‘you mother (expletive)’.”

“Jon and I are cool now. We hang out and we’re over all that,” Cerrone said.

The post Donald Cerrone Reveals He Nearly Had Fight With Jon Jones appeared first on LowKick MMA.