Jon Jones aspires to be more like Daniel Cormier.
Inside the Octagon, ‘Bones’ and ‘DC’ are two of the UFC’s fiercest rivals. But outside of the cage. … Okay, they still don’t like each other, but Jones believes the two could resolve much of their lingering animosity with a face-to-face conversation because, to the surprise of everyone, the UFC’s reigning heavyweight champion actually has a lot of admiration for the man Cormier is both in and out of the Octagon.
“I wanna take this time to thank Daniel Cormier for being my biggest rival and motivator,” Jones told Goeffrey Woo. Daniel Cormier, he has absolutely no reason to hang his head. He has been a model champion, a model husband, a model father, a teammate, a leader. I aspire to be a lot more like that man because he’s an amazing human being. Unfortunately, we are opponents, but outside of that, he is a true champion for the rest of his life.
“People try to make Daniel and I out to be these absolute archenemies. If you look at competitive athletes throughout history, they all come around… Outside of the sport, I have no ill will toward Daniel. I think he’s a very stand-up individual, and I think we’d actually make great friends if we were ever to sit down in front of each other and really just chat it out.”
The Awkward History of Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier
Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier fought twice, their first encounter going down at UFC 182. Jones ultimately won the bout via unanimous decision to retain his light heavyweight title, but a month later, it was revealed that Jones had tested positive for cocaine weeks before the bout.
Four months later, ‘Bones’ was scheduled to defend his belt against Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson. However, Jones was stripped of his strap following a hit-and-run incident where he crashed into a pregnant woman and then fled the scene on foot. As a result, Cormier stepped in for Jones and defeated Johnson to become the new light heavyweight champion.
That set the stage for a rematch between Jones and Cormier, which went down at UFC 214 on July 29, 2017. Jones again won the bout, this time via a third-round TKO.
Less than a month later, it was revealed that Jones had been flagged for a doping violation by USADA stemming from a sample collected on July 28 immediately following the weigh-ins.
USADA later confirmed that both the “A” and “B” samples of Jones tested positive for the anabolic steroid Turinabol. As a result, his win over Cormier was overturned to a no-contest, and the UFC stripped Jones of the title once again.
The promotion handed the belt back to ‘DC,’ who would go on to successfully defend it against Volkan Oezdemir before adding the undisputed heavyweight championship to his resume and retiring from the sport in August 2020 as one of only four fighters to hold two UFC titles simultaneously.
