We’ve pretty much seen it all over in terms of trash talk regarding Jon Jones’ three-year-old rivalry with UFC light heavyweight champion. But somehow, some way, Jones keeps coming up with new ways to troll his longtime rival. Shortly after “Bones” and “DC” continued their war of words in a heated exchange online, Jones hopped […]
We’ve pretty much seen it all over in terms of trash talk regarding Jon Jones’ three-year-old rivalry with UFC light heavyweight champion.
But somehow, some way, Jones keeps coming up with new ways to troll his longtime rival.
Shortly after “Bones” and “DC” continued their war of words in a heated exchange online, Jones hopped back on social media to stick it to the champ he feels has his belt again. This time, Cormier’s infamous UFC 210 scale fail this April, where he held on to the towel used to cover him up in order to make weight in a pinch.
The scene was criticized by many, as it was perceived Cormier, who began his illustrious MMA career as a heavyweight, was viewed as being overweight but able to prop up his body slightly enough in order to tip the scales in his favor. Check it out:
But no matter if it was questionable or not, Cormier made weight according to the still-learning New York State Athletic Commission’s judgment, and got the job done at UFC 210 by submitting Anthony “Rumble” Johnson for a second time.
That earned him the long-awaited rematch with Jones a fight that has been scheduled for both UFC 196 and UFC 200 only to fall apart due to an injury from Cormier and a failed USADA drug test just three days before the fight was set for the main event of the UFC’s historical bicentennial pay-per-view – an event that ultimately fell flat thanks in no small part to the last-minute main event change.
Jones won’t let Cormier get away with it, however, as he posed in a similar position on Twitter today while noting that his hard work was paying off and he was on track to make weight for their awaited rematch at July 29’s UFC 214:
The gloves are off for the UFC 214 main event, and truth be told, they have been ever since Jones and Cormier threw down in their now-infamous media day brawl before their originally scheduled match-up at UFC 178 back in 2014.
The rivalry could have beens solved for good many times since then, but Jones’ well-documented struggles outside the cage have lead to multiple delays, and are the main reason why fans and media members alike head into UFC 214 with the most cautious of optimism – and a heavy dose of skepticism.
We’ve never doubted Jones’ ability to generate an entertaining trash talk battle on social media, and obviously his fighting skills are among the best to ever fight in a cage. The issue with him, especially as of late, has been getting him to the cage without yet anohter slip-up.
Do you think he’ll be able to make it Anaheim and settle the score with “DC” once and for all?
Heading into next week’s (Sat., July 29, 2017) stacked and awaited UFC 214 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, a polarizing MMA legend has returned to the official UFC rankings. This week’s list features the return of former pound-for-pound great Jon Jones, the longtime light heavyweight champion who only lost the belt because of his […]
Heading into next week’s (Sat., July 29, 2017) stacked and awaited UFC 214 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, a polarizing MMA legend has returned to the official UFC rankings.
This week’s list features the return of former pound-for-pound great Jon Jones, the longtime light heavyweight champion who only lost the belt because of his outside-the-cage troubles and will face arch rival Daniel Cormier in a highly anticipated – and oft-rescheduled – rematch in the UFC 214 main event.
“Bones” is widely regarded as arguably the best mixed martial artist of all-time, and his torrid run as champion from 2011-2015 where he finished a slew of former champions and legends in their own right, ranks as quite possibly the best stretch any UFC fighter has displayed in the octagon. The streak included a unanimous decision win over Cormier in January 2015, and it was thought their highly-publicized rivalry had been put to bed.
But “DC” then went on to capitalize on “Bones’” next, and perhaps, greatest transgression when he was involved in a hit-and-run automobile accident in Albuquerque, New Mexico that left a 25-year-old pregnant woman with a broken arm in April 2015, going on to take his place and submit Anthony “Rumble” Johnson in the UFC 187 headliner to win the title that May.
With Jones sorting out legal issues, he was stripped of the title, and Cormier went on to defend the now-official belt against Alexander Gustafsson in a “Fight of the Year” contender at UFC 192, outlasted Anderson Silva at last summer’s UFC 200 when Jones was forced out of their rematch just days prior because of a USADA drug test, and finally submitted “Rumble” again at April’s UFC 210 from New York.
“Bones,” meanwhile, has only fought once since their original bout, beating late replacement Ovince Saint Preux at UFC 196 last April when Cormier was forced out of that scheduled rematch with a groin injury.
Joshua Dahl for USA TODAY Sports
Obviously, it’s been a long and winding road full of speed bumps for Cormier and Jones to finally face off once again, and the MMA world is cautiously awaiting that the fight will finally happen after three years of the rivalry – even with less than two weeks away.
Prior to the bout, however, Jones has regained a spot on the rankings, coming in at No. 7 on the pound-for-pound list and taking the No. 1 spot at light heavyweight over from Gustafsson. Jones bumped a host of top-ranked and active UFC fighters including champions Tyron Woodley, Michael Bisping, Amanda Nunes, and Robert Whittaker down a notch. There’s no doubt that a healthy, dependable Jones would rank above those fighters if he were actively defending the belt; there’s a case to be made he would still be above new pound-for-pound leader Demetrious Johnson if that were the case.
It’s not, however, and Jones simply needs to prove he can make it to a fight to stay on these rankings, as he’s shown time and again the actual fighting isn’t the hard part. What do you think of his ranking? Is it right too low, or too high given his outside-the-octagon run-ins with law enforcement and repeated substance abuse issues?
Check out the fully updated rankings via UFC.com here:
POUND-FOR-POUND 1 Demetrious Johnson 2 Conor McGregor 3 Daniel Cormier 4 Stipe Miocic 5 Max Holloway 6 Cody Garbrandt 7 Jon Jones *NR 8 Joanna Jedrzejczyk -1 9 Tyron Woodley -1 10 Dominick Cruz -1 11 Michael Bisping -1 12 Jose Aldo -1 13 Amanda Nunes -1 14 Robert Whittaker -1 15 TJ Dillashaw -1
FLYWEIGHT Champion: Demetrious Johnson 1 Joseph Benavidez 2 Henry Cejudo 3 Ray Borg 4 Wilson Reis 5 Jussier Formiga 6 Sergio Pettis 7 Brandon Moreno 8 Ben Nguyen 9 Tim Elliott +3 10 John Moraga 11 Ian McCall 12 Dustin Ortiz -3 13 Alexandre Pantoja +1 14 Louis Smolka -1 15 Magomed Bibulatov
BANTAMWEIGHT Champion: Cody Garbrandt 1 Dominick Cruz 2 TJ Dillashaw 3 Raphael Assuncao 4 John Lineker 4 Jimmie Rivera -1 6 Bryan Caraway 7 John Dodson 8 Aljamain Sterling 9 Thomas Almeida 10 Marlon Moraes 11 Eddie Wineland 12 Pedro Munhoz 13 Rob Font 14 Matthew Lopez 15 Johnny Eduardo
FEATHERWEIGHT Champion: Max Holloway 1 Jose Aldo 2 Frankie Edgar 3 Ricardo Lamas 4 Cub Swanson 5 Chan Sung Jung 6 Yair Rodriguez 7 Jeremy Stephens 8 Brian Ortega 9 Renato Moicano 10 Dennis Bermudez 11 Dooho Choi +1 12 Darren Elkins -1 13 Mirsad Bektic 14 Renan Barao 15 Jason Knight
LIGHTWEIGHT Champion: Conor McGregor 1 Khabib Nurmagomedov 2 Tony Ferguson 3 Eddie Alvarez 4 Edson Barboza 5 Justin Gaethje +1 6 Nate Diaz -1 7 Kevin Lee 8 Dustin Poirier 9 Michael Johnson 10 Michael Chiesa 11 Al Iaquinta 12 Beneil Dariush 13 Anthony Pettis 14 Evan Dunham 15 Gilbert Melendez
WELTERWEIGHT Champion: Tyron Woodley 1 Demian Maia 2 Stephen Thompson 3 Robbie Lawler 4 Jorge Masvidal 5 Carlos Condit +1 6 Neil Magny -1 7 Donald Cerrone 8 Santiago Ponzinibbio +6 9 Colby Covington 10 Rafael Dos Anjos 11 Gunnar Nelson -3 12 Kamaru Usman 13 Dong Hyun Kim -2 14 Ryan LaFlare -1 15 Tarec Saffiedine
MIDDLEWEIGHT Champion: Michael Bisping 1 Robert Whittaker (Interim Champion) 2 Yoel Romero 3 Luke Rockhold 4 Jacare Souza 5 Chris Weidman +1 6 Anderson Silva +1 7 Derek Brunson +1 8 Kelvin Gastelum *NR 9 David Branch 10 Krzysztof Jotko 11 Vitor Belfort 12 Thales Leites 13 Tim Boetsch 14 Uriah Hall 15 Thiago Santos
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT Champion: Daniel Cormier 1 Jon Jones *NR 2 Alexander Gustafsson -1 3 Jimi Manuwa -1 4 Glover Teixeira -1 5 Volkan Oezdemir -1 6 Mauricio Rua -1 7 Corey Anderson -1 7 Ovince Saint Preux 9 Misha Cirkunov -1 10 Ilir Latifi -1 11 Rogerio Nogueira -1 12 Patrick Cummins -1 13 Gian Villante 14 Tyson Pedro -2 15 Gadzhimurad Antigulov -1
HEAVYWEIGHT Champion: Stipe Miocic 1 Alistair Overeem 2 Fabricio Werdum 3 Cain Velasquez 4 Junior Dos Santos 5 Francis Ngannou 6 Mark Hunt 7 Derrick Lewis 8 Alexander Volkov 9 Stefan Struve 10 Marcin Tybura 11 Aleksei Oleinik 12 Tim Johnson 13 Andrei Arlovski 14 Travis Browne 15 Curtis Blaydes
UFC 214, which is set to take place on July 29, 2017 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, has received a third title fight. On tonight’s (June 28, 2017) edition of UFC Tonight on FOX Sports 1, UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley confirmed that he will be defending his 170-pound title against red hot […]
UFC 214, which is set to take place on July 29, 2017 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, has received a third title fight.
On tonight’s (June 28, 2017) edition of UFC Tonight on FOX Sports 1, UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley confirmed that he will be defending his 170-pound title against red hot top contender Demian Maia on the card.
After brutally knocking out Robbie Lawler to become the welterweight champion last July at UFC 201, Woodley battled Stephen Thompson for 10 rounds in back-to-back fights. The two fought to a majority draw in an instant classic at UFC 205 last November before Woodley took home a decision victory in the rematch at UFC 209 this past March.
Maia, on the other hand, has won an incredible seven straight, with three of those victories coming by way of submission. During his winning streak, Maia has picked up victories over notable fighters like Neil Magny, Gunnar Nelson, Matt Brown Carlos Condit and most recently Jorge Masvidal.
UFC 214 is currently set to be headlined by a light heavyweight title fight, as champion Daniel Cormier and returning former champion Jon Jones will run it back for a second time. Cris Cyborg and Tonya Evinger are also slated to do battle on the card for the vacant UFC featherweight title.
Looks like Daniel Cormier might be mad about another UFC poster he’s featured on. The UFC released the official poster for Cormier’s UFC 214 main event against former champion Jon Jones from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, on July 29, and let’s just say the champ isn’t featured as prominently as he may like. Check […]
Looks like Daniel Cormier might be mad about another UFC poster he’s featured on.
The UFC released the official poster for Cormier’s UFC 214 main event against former champion Jon Jones from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, on July 29, and let’s just say the champ isn’t featured as prominently as he may like. Check it out:
It’s a strange look to have Cormier, the champion who has defended the championship twice since his rival Jones was stripped of the belt for his disturbing hit-and-run accident that left a 25-year-old pregnant woman with a broken arm in April 2015, upside down on the poster for their anticipated rematch.
True, Jones beat “DC” at January 2015’s UFC 182, and is arguably the most dominant fighter in MMA history. But Cormier is the champion regardless of if many feel “Bones” is the rightful champ or not, and promoting it the opposite is sure to further irk Cormier.
If you’ll remember, “DC” had issues with the poster for his UFC 210 meeting with Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, where the heavy hitter was featured much larger as he loomed over a smaller image of Cormier on the official poster.
Cormier’s yet to respond, but overall, it’s simply a strange decision to put your champ upside down on an event poster, and could reflect the UFC’s view of whom they are rooting for on July 29.
Do you think the UFC should have taken a different design route, or is it a good look in your opinion?
In the time after his impressive fifth-round stoppage over Glover Teixeira in the main event of last weekend’s UFC Fight Night 109 from Stockholm, top-ranked UFC light heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson made it clear that he didn’t like Jon Jones as a person even if he was the greatest fighter in MMA history. Late yesterday, the […]
In the time after his impressive fifth-round stoppage over Glover Teixeira in the main event of last weekend’s UFC Fight Night 109 from Stockholm, top-ranked UFC light heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson made it clear that he didn’t like Jon Jones as a person even if he was the greatest fighter in MMA history.
Late yesterday, the still-suspended pound-for-pound king responded to “The Mauler’s” drubbing by going off in a brutal Twitter rant. A few hours after that, Gustafsson reacted to “Bones” online assault with a few responses of his own. First, he said that although he roots for Daniel Cormier, he hopes Jones wins at UFC 214, and would pray for the former champ after he beat him:
I root for @dc_mma but I want u to win, and after the way I beat u, I promise I will pray for you. Happy now?
— Alexander Gustafsson (@AlexTheMauler) June 1, 2017
The barb was calm enough, yet Gustafsson took the trash talk to an all-new level in replying to “Bones”” suggestion that he lost to him at UFC 165 and Cormier at UFC 192 due to a lack of heart. Gustafsson thinks his loss to Jones came from another more nefarious aspect of the fight game – the fact that USADA wasn’t testing elite UFC athletes at the time:
No my friend, against you it was because of the absence of @usantidoping
— Alexander Gustafsson (@AlexTheMauler) June 1, 2017
Photo by Tom Szczerbowski for USA TODAY Sports
The slick retort may be the usually reserved Gustafsson’s best-ever instance of smack talk, as the respectful fighter doesn’t normally build up his matches with pre-fight verbal assaults, choosing to let his hands and feet do the talking in the octagon. Jones expectedly denied that his razor-thin unanimous decision over “The Mauler” was due to any form of performance-enhancing substance, but with Jones suspended for just that, it’s hard to argue with the top contender’s insistence.
Then Jones appeared to be amusingly hurt by the whole conversation, even though he started the entire war of words himself. The oft-troubled champ evoked a rule they teach young school children to close the conversation in an unexpected way, saying he was done with “The Mauler” for now:
Next time if you don't have anything nice to say, you know the rest. I'm done with you for now
Jones’ knowing he was only done with Gustafsson for now may be a telling prediction, as it seems the Swedish star has done enough to get the next shot at the winner of “Bones’” rematch with arch rival Cormier at July 29’s UFC 214 from Anaheim.
But we all know Jones making it the cage has become anything but a certainty in recent years; in fact, the cold truth of the matter is we’re more likely to see another highly anticipated bout be canceled for one reason or another, be it injury to either man or continuing legal and drug test issues for Jones. The UFC could most definitely be in the realm of considering how many more chances they will give the decorated Jones, but with a disappointing lack of stars present for the promotion in 2017, they could attempt to book fights for the onetime-indestructible titleholder.
No one could blame them, of course, because Cormier vs. Jones II could easily be the highest-selling PPV event in the barren desert that the year has presented the promotion in terms of overall estimated buyrates. In a sport as volatile as MMA, that’s just the fight game.
The UFC could use Jones’ trouble-free return to face Cormier and then perhaps Gustafsson in what could legitimately turn out to be two of the bigger rematches in UFC history. Just don’t count on it.
After last night’s revelation that Dana White had worked out Conor McGregor’s side of the deal and the follow-up news that McGregor had applied for a boxing license in Nevada, the mixed martial arts (MMA) universe is awash in the distinct possibility that the the infamous “Notorious” could actually be boxing Floyd Mayweather Jr. If
After last night’s revelation that Dana White had worked out Conor McGregor’s side of the deal and the follow-up news that McGregor had applied for a boxing license in Nevada, the mixed martial arts (MMA) universe is awash in the distinct possibility that the the infamous “Notorious” could actually be boxing Floyd Mayweather Jr.
If it actually does – and it’s far from being anything closely resembling a done deal – the majority of those familiar with combat sports still believe that Mayweather, a boxer whom many consider one of if not the best to ever compete, is going to wipe the floor with the UFC’s biggest star, who has no professional boxing experience.
One high-profile subscriber of the theory is UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, who pulled no “Bones” about McGregor’s chances against the legendary pugilist in addition to any of the other rumored UFC vs. boxing bouts during today’s episode of UFC Tonight:
“He can actually go and fight Mayweather. He will lose. But the rest of these guys, they will get no money, and they will get slept.
“Look, James Toney fought in the UFC, and we had no problem showing the footage over and over again of James Toney getting beat by Randy Couture. These boxing promoters will constantly video of the heavyweight champion of the world getting slept by Anthony Joshua, or Jimi Manuwa, c’mon Jimi! Getting slept by David Haye.
These dudes will get slept, it’s going to be embarrassing, so no, it is not good for the UFC. Conor, hat’s off to you, make your money, but don’t get slept! Which might happen to ’em”
Cormier is currently set for his oft-scheduled (and oft-canceled) grudge match with former champion Jon Jones at July 29’s UFC 214, and as we’ve seen in the past, that fight is anything but a certainty to happen despite its high-profile nature. The current champion seems to be the heel in the eye of the fans, and perhaps that’s because he tells the facts how they are in a blunt manner, as he has with his recent back-and-forth with the embattled all-time legend.
And while he may be a public persona for the UFC as a co-host of UFC Tonight, Cormier told it like it is here with the cold truth that most if not all professional MMA fighters would stand little chance in the boxing ring against the sport’s top athletes, just like the top boxers would have no chance in the cage.
McGregor most likely isn’t concerned with that, however, as the possibility of an absolutely unparalleled payday is much more than enough to get past the probability that he may lose. That’s the current mindset of MMA’s biggest star, and he could be headed for a bout that does anything but make the UFC look good in any way.
But with big-money bouts few and far between in 2017, the promotion is looking for the biggest payday it can get. Is this one worth it?
