Daniel Cormier tapped Anthony Johnson at UFC 187, winning the UFC light heavyweight title vacated when Jon Jones was stripped for the latest in a series of unfortunate altercations with the law. Then Cormier grabbed the mic and admonished Jones to “get your s*** together.”
Jones spoke there after about growth, and sobriety, and how much better life is when you’re clean. And then Jones had a drug test flagged for PEDs. It was no great surprise.
The standard USADA suspension is 24 months. Daniel Cormier is 37. During a recent appearance on Luke Thomas’s podcast on SiriusXM, DC said he’s not waiting for Jones’ return, and that he needs a break from the rivalry.
“We’ve been scheduled to fight 4 times,” said Cormier, as transcribed by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “We’ve fought the once. The first fight obviously he got hurt, then he beat me in January. I got hurt the second time, and now this. It just seems as though we can’t make money together. We do good business when we do fight but we just haven’t been able to get to the octagon. It’s the weirdest thing and it keeps our story going and the reality is I don’t think we really want our story to keep going. It’s so draining and taxing mentally to be involved in this rivalry that we have.”
“Before, I was like, ‘I’ve gotta fight Jones! I’ve gotta fight Jones!’ and I still want to fight Jones. I want to fight Jones. Even if I was to finish my career with one loss only and I never fought him again I would still feel sick a little bit because I would never have gotten the opportunity to right the wrong that I feel that that fight was. But at the end of the day I can’t control that. I can’t want for him more than he wants for himself.
“You don’t put yourself in those situations and I can’t really count on him to be there. I can only control what I can control and fight whose there to be fought. Just like last year. Last year I fought who was there to fight. The people I fought were there to be fought: Rumble and Alexander. And then after Rumble and those guys fight I’ll be there to fight against the people that are eligible to fight and we’ll see what happens from there.
“I’m not willing to wait at all. Even if they suspend him for just a few months, I don’t care. I’m probably gonna fight somebody different first. I need to separate myself from this a little bit, for me. For me and my mind, my mentality. I think I need to separate myself from him a little bit. It’s so emotionally taxing with everything that has happened and it hasn’t come to pass.”
“I don’t really have a number but I will say this, I’ve been good with my money. I’ve got some security in that sense. I’m good for the future. There really is no reason for me to be fighting past 40. I don’t need to be fighting at 40 years old. I should be spending time with my family and my children and just doing TV stuff. It’s what I want to do. So I don’t have an absolute time frame but if everything goes according to plan, there’s no reason that I should be fighting at 40 years old. I think my athletic career will be okay at that point. I will be satisfied with everything I’ve done.”
“Jon Jones is a phenomenal athlete, a great champion, but a confused individual. He needs guidance and if he finds guidance he could actually be a very special member of society…He’s a great champion in athletics, and outside he’s just a confused person who is trying to find his way.”
