Daniel Cormier isn’t letting Jon Jones have the last word.
In the latest back-and-forth exchange between the longtime rivals, Cormier and Jones have found themselves arguing about their reputations with the UFC and their respective legacies. Cormier suggested that Jones was a “bad employee” after a recent unsealing of court documents revealed a series of 2014 text messages between former UFC Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta and future UFC CEO Dana White in which they had unkind words for Jones. At various points, they refer to Jones as a “scumbag,” a “punk,” and a “douche.”
Jones fired back at Cormier, calling him “bitter” due to Jones beating him twice (the second win was overturned to a no-contest when Jones failed a drug test) during their careers. Cormier responded to Jones on his podcast, saying that he wasn’t necessarily talking about Jones in particular, but even if he was, it had nothing to do with any personal beef.
“You know what the craziest thing to me is about this whole situation with Jones?” Cormier said. “If I could say 100 things about him positively, he hangs on to the negative things. But I wasn’t talking about him directly. I was talking about in business, you have employees in your businesses, sometimes things go sideways with the employees and you say bad things. Someone’s being a bad employee, you say bad things. That was my argument.
“Then I get countless notifications that Jones said, ‘Never let a ‘bad employee’ beat you up and take everything from you twice. It’ll leave you bitter for a really long time evidently.’ Guys, even if he won both fights, in that moment, it doesn’t change what I would say. I’m paid to do a job, I’m paid to talk and try to make sense or give you guys the inside view as to what’s going on in mixed martial arts. Even if he won both fights, it doesn’t change what happened with the fight with Dan Henderson. It doesn’t change the stuff that happened at UFC 200. It doesn’t change all those reasons why Dana went off.”
Cormier further argued that feuding with Jones would be pointless since there can be no payoff to any rivalry. The two previously met in a pair of high-profile light heavyweight championship fights at UFC 182 and UFC 214.
While Cormier retired in 2020, Jones remains an active competitor and currently holds the UFC’s heavyweight title. That’s a sign for Cormier that despite any headaches that Jones might give the UFC—Jones has had numerous outside-of-the-cage legal issues—his in-cage performance trumps all.
“I also said a ton of nice things about him,” Cormier said. “I also said that while he did all those things, the UFC couldn’t afford to get rid of him because he’s too valuable. He’s too important. So while even though at times there can be bitterness, there can be anger, there can be all those things, he’s always going to be safe because he’s so important. Where was the response to that?”
Outside of not being able to beat Jones, Cormier has little to regret about his own career. He won UFC titles at light heavyweight and heavyweight, holds notable wins over Stipe Miocic, Anderson Silva, Anthony Johnson, Frank Mir, Dan Henderson, and Alexander Gustafsson, and is a staple of the UFC’s pay-per-view broadcast team.
Cormier doesn’t even begrudge Jones failing drug tests as he’s confident that he’s faced several opponents who were using performance-enhancing drugs.
“I never said that he’s a bad employee forever,” Cormier said. “I said in those moments it was probably bad. But then he responds in a way like I’m bitter.
“I’m not bitter. I am fine with everything. I’m fine with everything. I’m the one that says, ‘Sure, you won the fight,’ because I don’t think he’s the only person in my life that I fought that was on steroids. I don’t believe it. There’s probably a ton of guys that I fought over the course of my career that did steroids. I just didn’t beat him, I couldn’t beat him. Regardless of what he was doing, I couldn’t beat him. That’s my reality and I’m OK with that.”
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