Jones: It was tough to see DC cry as he is a great ambassador
Jon Jones: “Especially being a young black man, there’s not too many black men in the sport so I think that it’s sad when we’re at each other’s throats.”
UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones appeared recently on the Sway In The Morning show, and said he hopes he and former champion Daniel Cormier can get past their differences.
I’d like to be cool with him,” said Jones, as transcribed by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “Especially being a young black man, there’s not too many black men in the sport so I think that it’s sad when we’re at each other’s throats. If anything, we should be rallying around each other, supporting each other, and lifting each other up.
So I would like to eventually get to a place where we can support each other, do charity events together, do an interview together and talk about our beef. The same way Mike Tyson and Holyfield came together years later and talked about the matches they had, I would love to be able to do something with Daniel Cormier. I think people would like to see us mend things.
It was tough to watch him cry though because he’s such a good ambassador of our sport and I feel those one-on-one sports like MMA, boxing, these are sports where you see grown men cry because your success is all on your shoulders, whereas on a basketball team or football team you can blame it on the other guys out there with you. You can say, I gave it my all but my team was off that day. But in MMA, it’s all you out there and it’s such a person thing when you’re defeated. The legacy and everything, they’re not talking about your team, they’re talking about you forever. So the way men get attached to this sport, it’s a beautiful thing and it just shows how much this means to him.
The truth, of course, is that it’s easy to get past a rivalry when you win. It doesn’t matter what he said because I won the fight,” acknowledged Jones.
Great champions are made by great rivalries. Muhammad Ali had a great rivalry with Joe Frazier, but it was Ali who won the final two. In time, America finally came around wholly to Ali, and he was chosen to light the torch at the 1996 Olympics. At that point they had no fought for over 20 years, but Frazier said bitterly he wished he had been there to push Ali into the flames.
“I want to cut him into pieces and send him up to Jesus,” said Smokin’ Joe. So if Cormier and Jones fully reconcile, it would be great, but don’t expect it anytime soon.
