Jones’ wrestling coach: Cormier broke before, too
Jon Jones’ wrestling coach: “I told Jon that he had weaknesses and I emphasized it. I emphasized that you can break him, because I’ve seen him break before.”
Daniel Cormier predicted that the fight for UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones’ title would be a battle of wills. It was, and Jones won.
Jon Jones’ wrestling coach Izzy Martinez appeared Monday on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and said Cormier had broken before.
“I talked to people and people tell you, ‘Yeah you know Daniel Cormier used to do some things that not some of the other guys did,'” said Martinez as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. “I’m not here to bash Daniel Cormier. He’s a great guy. But we found some weaknesses. I told Jon that he had weaknesses and I emphasized it. I emphasized that you can break him, because I’ve seen him break before. That was part of training camp, just explaining to Jon that he is not invincible like they’re portraying him. No one’s invincible.”
Martinez said a key to Jones effectiveness was his handfighting.
“If you can’t slow them down by grabbing their neck, you can’t slow them down by grabbing their elbow, you slow them down by grabbing their wrist,” said Martinez.
“I don’t care how good of a shape you’re in and I don’t care how big of a grind you think you push, when you get out of your comfort zone and you start getting frustrated you, you break and we saw that. Jon did an excellent job in just doing what Jon does. He hand-fights great.”
On the great question of the real Jon Jones, his coach said that Jones was a good, family man.
“Cormier talked a lot of trash and so did his camp and his little boxing coach,” said Martinez. “It was a lot. And we know that they would have been doing the same thing. So I think that Jon Jones was just kind of answering questions with a little more emotion than he usually does. It was emotional for him. It was a big win for him. It was a great win for our team.”