Jon Jones has never been shy about voicing his opinion on Daniel Cormier in the past. On Monday, the former UFC light heavyweight champion went on the record to question whether it was an injury that knocked Cormier out of their scheduled bout at UFC 197 on Saturday.
Jones discussed his doubt about Cormier's condition on ESPN's First Take:
FoxSports.com's Damon Martin shared some of his comments from the interview:
Yeah, I am a little bit [skeptical]. To this day no one's really positive what his actual injury is. I've heard some people say that he's hurt and not actually injured. Supposedly a doctor told him recently that in four weeks he could be completely healed to fight again. So when you're healing from something in four weeks time it makes me feel maybe you're not actually injured, maybe you're fighting hurt.
Cormier backed out of the fight on April 1, with Martin reporting he suffered a shin injury. Instead, Jones will be facing off with Ovince Saint Preux on Saturday.
Jones and Cormier have one of the most personal feuds in the UFC. In August 2014, Greg Howard shared a clip on Deadspin (note: link contains NSFW language) from a SportsCenter interview involving the two fighters. A hot mic caught the trash talk they exchanged after the interview ended.
"Me and Daniel do not like each other at all," said Jones, per Martin. "It all boils down to me being alpha male and him thinking that he is. If he wasn't around, he would be. So there's some strong competition there."
Jones and Cormier have fought just once, with the former winning a unanimous decision at UFC 182 in January 2015. Once Cormier is healthy again, the UFC will almost certainly waste little time announcing a second battle between the two.
Should that happen, Cormier will likely use Jones' words from Monday as motivation to avoid a repeat of their last clash.
