Cormier: Stop feeling sorry for Jon Jones
Daniel Cormier: “I don’t feel sorry for Jon Jones; I feel sorry for the lady he hit in the car that has a baby coming … I don’t feel sorry for him. He did this.”
Former UFC light heavyweight Jon Jones was supposed to fight Anthony Johnson at Saturday’s UFC 187 pay per view event. But Jones was arrested for felony leaving the scene of an accident, and was stripped of his title and suspended indefinitely.
A number of figures in the sport have expressed degrees of sympathy for what happened to Jones, but Daniel Cormier is not among them.
“I feel bad for his family and the people around him,” said Cormier to Marc Raimondi for MMAFighting.com, after Wednesday’s UFC 187 open workouts. “But he’s making these decisions. I think it’s time for people to stop feeling sorry for this guy and make him realize that he has to get things done the right way. By feeling sorry for him, it’s almost like you enable the guy to continue to do bad things. I mean, I don’t feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for the people closest to him. These decisions don’t affect just Jon. It affects everybody around him.”
“Now I’m back tied to him. It’s like I cannot separate myself from Jon Jones. At the end of the day, Jon will get himself together. How good would it be for you guys if he has to come back in the challenger’s role against me? I’ll run his ass through the mud.”
“If there’s anything I take away from this with Jones it’s he has an issue. He has some demons. Not only because of this incident, but because of the past incidents. And even the [positive] test before him and I fought. This is arguably the biggest fight of your career and a month before you’re doing those types of things.”
“What we need to focus more on is him becoming a better person and him fixing himself,. None of us should sit here and worry about Jon Jones the athlete. You worry about Jon Jones the person, because that’s what’s important right now. He has some demons, some issues he needs to take care of before he can get back to all this. This will always be here waiting for him. He’s 27 years old. Get himself together, be a better person and then worry about the athlete.”
“I don’t feel sorry for Jon; I feel sorry for the lady he hit in the car that has a baby coming. I feel sorry for his parents who have to wake up every morning and see those types of things in the media. I don’t feel sorry for him. He did this.”
Daniel Cormier fights Anthony Johnson on Saturday at UFC 187, for the UFC light heavyweight title vacated by Jones.