UFC champ Daniel Cormier is past Jon Jones: 'I've just been dragged down by this guy constantly'

By: Fernanda Prates and Matt Erickson | January 21, 2018 8:30 am

BOSTON – The time has yet to come when UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier can get through a press conference without getting asked about Jon Jones .

But Cormier himself is now past thinking about his bitter rival.

Cormier (20-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) put on yet another clinic in the co-headliner of Saturday’s UFC 220, capping off a dominant display over Volkan Oezdemir (15-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC) with a second-round TKO. The win meant a special type of recovery for the defending champ: Last time we’d seen him in the octagon, a crushed Cormier was losing the 205-pound crown to Jones (23-1 MMA, 17-1 UFC).

Jones would go on to be flagged by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for a failed drug test . His knockout win at UFC 214 was overturned, and Cormier was reinstated as champ. After Cormier’s first title defense on Saturday, it remains that way.

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Jones, who’s currently under provisional suspension after testing positive for the steroid Turinabol, has a hearing scheduled with the California State Athletic Commission next month.

So where does that leave the two?

“I’m just past it right now,” Cormier said after his pay-per-view co-headliner at TD Garden in Boston. “Until he’s able to do what we want to do, and that’s fight, I’m kind of past it. I’m kind of a bit of this spot, when it comes to Jones. Competitively, all I want to do is fight him again. But at some point, it’s just like, ‘Man, is it ever going to be just a fight without nothing else?’

“And I don’t know if I can put myself through that again. I’ve done everything right. And I’ve just been dragged down by this guy constantly. So I’m not thinking about it. I’m going to do my thing for right now.”

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One can see where Cormier is coming from. To this day, his only setbacks have come at the hands of “Bones.” Their rivalry has been one of the most heated in the history of the sport, having manifested itself in the form of shoe-throwing, awkward arguments  and, why not, the occasional serial killer comparison .

Apart from the two octagon meetings that ended up materializing, the 205-pound fighters had two scrapped bouts – including the infamous UFC 200 headliner that got pulled in the last minute due to Jones’ first run-in with USADA.

Cormier never has hidden the fact that he’s a very competitive person, so it’s not really a surprise he would like to get those losses back. But, at the same time, it’s hard to fault him for wanting at least a break from what seems to have been an inescapable presence hovering over his career for years.

For complete coverage of  UFC 220 , check out the  UFC Events  section of the site.