Light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier has stood face to face with Jon Jones several times over the last couple of years. They fought at UFC 182 and were scheduled to fight on two other occasions, but their face off at the UFC 214 pre-fight press conference was different.
Cormier saw something, and it wasn’t the same Jones as in previous face offs.
“I really liked when we went face to face and we were looking into each other’s eyes. Generally, it’s me jawing. I’m always jawing trying to tell him something, to shift him. Today, no jawing. I wanted to look him directly in the face and show him the time for talk is done,” Cormier told MMAFighting.
UFC 214 Pre-Fight Press Conference Face Offs
“I never broke eye contact with him and I wanted to look directly into his soul and see what it told me and I saw him shift. I saw his eyes look at my chest, look at my legs, look around, have a really difficult time just staying face to face,” added the champion.
When Cormier looked into the eyes of the former champion he saw confidence, but he also saw doubt.
“What I saw in Jon Jones was he’s a confident man. But he’s putting on a little bit more than people will ever recognize until their two inches from his face like I saw. He may be confident, but in those eyes I see more doubt than I’ve ever seen and I believe their are a number of reasons for that,” said Cormier.
