Daniel Cormier was clearly a tough opponent for Jon Jones. After 25 minutes of action, the former Olympian gave the champion all that he could handle but was unable to walk out of the Octagon with a victory. Looking back, there are a few different points in the fight that may have went wrong for Cormier in his first shot at UFC gold.
First and foremost, the reach advantage that Jones had over Cormier played a massive role in the course of this fight. According to FightMetric, Jones boasted a 12" reach advantage (84" for Jones versus 72" for Cormier). Jones used that throughout the fight, employing long-range striking with jabs and straights and kicks to the thigh and body in order to keep the challenger away.
Tabulations at the end of the fight showed that Jones landed 126 of 215 strikes, while Cormier landed 78 of 191 (via FightMetric). Interestingly enough, many of these strikes landed were counters that Jones was able to hit while backing away from his opponent. His ability to do so from range gave him the space needed to be able to counter the aggressive Cormier so effectively.
Pacing may have played a part in a lack of momentum for the challenger. Cormier admittedly took the fourth round “off” and was not as active as he potentially could be.
“Fourth round, I took off,” Cormier mentioned during the post-fight press conference. “He won that round going away. In the fifth round, I don't think either one of us did much at all. We just kinda hugged each other” (video per MMAFighting.com).
Looking again at the FightMetric totals, Cormier is reported to have landed only three of 16 significant shots during the fourth stanza of the light heavyweight contest. On the other hand, Jones landed 16 of his 27 significant strikes in that same time period. That momentum rolled into the fifth round as Cormier continued to have a low output of strikes to finish the fight.
Wrestling was to be Cormier's greatest strength coming into this fight, but Jones was able to get the better of his foe in that aspect of MMA as well. This is interesting because it has been stated that a snark comment from Jones about wrestling started this whole ordeal.
David Doyle of MMAFighting.com wrote a piece that chronicles the conversation that occurred between Jones and Cormier years ago.
“I bet you that I could take you down,” Jones reportedly said to Cormier when they met for the first time. That moment would be the catalyst that would lead to the main event bout of UFC 182. Jones proved his point, taking Cormier down multiple times in their fight.
Jones landed three of five takedown attempts, many of which came at critical points late in the fight. Cormier was only able to get the champion down to the ground once out of his eight attempts (via FightMetric). Much of Jones's defense seemed to come from his length and his ability to stay away from his opponent's attempt to transition a single leg into trip takedowns.
“He felt a little bigger in the cage than he looks normally,” Cormier said during the post-fight press conference. “He hangs on you, and when he starts to hang on you, it can zap you in the fight” (video via MMAFighting.com).
While Cormier was defeated by Jones, he was the tough test that many played him up to be coming into the fight. Still, he was unable to do enough to become the 205-pound champion, being just another name added to Jones's impressive MMA resume.
