Daniel Cormier Tributes His Accomplishments to the Rivalry with Jon Jones

Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones will go down in history as few of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time. Jones is the undisputed king of light heavyweight. Both the times that these fighters faced each other, Jon Jones emerged victorious on both occasions. The second loss was converted to a No Result after Jones failed drug test. However, Jon Jones looked absolutely dominant in both the bouts and earned the clear victory by way of his performances during both the fights.

Cormier credited Jon Jones for bringing out the best in him. And showed appreciation towards the competitiveness showed in the whole rivalry. Jones is the current light heavyweight champion and has remained unbeaten throughout his MMA career. In a recent interaction with BT Sports, Daniel Cormier reflected about his rivalry with Jon Jones, and how the fighter has helped him improve in his own game. 

Daniel Cormier talks about Jon Jones

“I think about the Jones portion of my career spanned about three years 15′ 17′ I think was the second time we fought. So it was only two years but it so defines everything that I have done, because we have such a big rivalry and I appreciate the competitiveness of it. I appreciate the fact that he made me prepare better than I ever prepare for anyone else. I feel like those fights brought the best out of me. This is my mind. It’s like do I really want to undertake that again. All that bad blood that is attached to that rivalry. He won the fights. The only good thing that came out of that fight is I prepared best than I have ever prepared. It gave me something really big to chase down. We made a lot of money.”

Cormier accepted his defeat to Jon Jones and was doubtful of a third fight going forward. He has already shared that he is looking to end his career after the trilogy fight against Stipe Miocic. Cormier picked up a victory against Miocic in the first match. However, he suffered a KO loss at UFC 241 for the heavyweight title.

Cormier believes he got better after fighting Jones

“The things that I have accomplished in this game it’s crazy. But I tribute a lot of it to that rivalry because I believed that I got better. From the moment I was scheduled to fight him the first time, IDaniel got better before the first fight. And because I got better the first fight I was able to beat everybody else and I got better again before the second fight. And I just continued to evolve my game cause I know how much better he was”

Cormier looked in absolute awe of Jon Jones as he appreciated the current light heavyweight champion. He said that he improved a lot as a fighter, after fighting Jones. Such words from Cormier, after a heated rivalry that lasted two years of insane action and drama, is the spirit of sports that everybody enjoys.