UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones already holds two wins over Daniel Cormier at 205lbs, but it seems he’s still wary of the danger that a fighter of his caliber presents to him.
So much so in fact that Jones has gone on record as saying that he won’t fight DC at heavyweight, because it’s too much of a risk.
“Daniel Cormier is a special athlete, and everyone can be beat,” Jones told Dan Hardy on BT Sport in the UK. “I think my greatest chance of losing would be to a guy like Daniel Cormier, with giving him a power and strength advantage over me, it just doesn’t make sense.
“Right now, I make light heavyweight very easily. It just would make no sense to fight a guy who technically is on your level, and to give him a size advantage, I’m not doing it.”
That being said, Jones also appeared to pour cold water on the idea of Cormier moving down to light-heavyweight for a trilogy fight.
“He’s definitely never coming back to light heavyweight. He says it, but there’s no way he’s coming back to light heavyweight. To commit your life to lose that type of weight and to come up short again would be so devastating. It would take an incredible amount of courage to attempt it, and to come up short would just be so devastating. I doubt he’d put himself through that for the third time.”
Regardless, before the match-up could even be considered, Jones has to defeat Thiago Silva in his latest 205lb title defense at UFC 239 in July, while Cormier heads into a rematch with Stipe Miocic at UFC 241 a month later.
