Jon Jones recently threatened to vacate his light-heavyweight title due to an ongoing feud with Dana White, but while some observers believe he’s just bluffing, his old rival Daniel Cormier thinks it could actually happen.
“I believe that he is more serious about walking away because in all those times that he was suspended and hurt and all that other stuff – gone – he kinda learned to live without that belt,” Cormier told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani. “For a long time he held the belt that when he lost the belt the first time, he probably thought his world was ending. But then he was gone for two years and life probably didn’t seem all that different. So he’s probably looking at life right now and understanding that, ‘if I walk away from this belt, is my life really gonna change all that much?’ I think that gives him comfort, and being able to say the things that he’s saying. So I think to a degree he does believe, I do believe, that he’s serious.”
Nevertheless, Cormier thinks that Jones would be better off continuing to negotiate over a potential heavyweight superfight with Francis Ngannou and possibly look to earn more from pay-per-view points rather than a guaranteed sum of money in order to make a bigger payday.
“I am almost 100 percent certain that the UFC would pay a $7-8 million base for him to go fight Francis. And if he’s such a big star and it’s going to do so well, then maybe the pay-per-view will get you to the number that you want it to be. If it has as much intrigue as people are saying it does. And then that’s on the fans. It’s on the fans who are supporting you in this fight to go out and purchase the fight and when they do, now you make all the money that you need. That’s how I feel.”
