Getty Daniel Cormier
Former UFC two-division champion Daniel Cormier still isn’t happy with Jon Jones failing multiple drug tests during their rivalry.
Cormier was recently a guest on “The Pivot Podcast” and he spoke about his experience with Jones. “DC” and Jones fought twice in the promotion’s light heavyweight division. They first met in 2015 at UFC 182 when “Bones” was the 205-pound king and Cormier boasted an undefeated 15-0 professional MMA record. Jones won the bout via unanimous decision but was subsequently stripped of the title after violating the promotion’s Athlete Code of Conduct Policy for a hit-and-run incident to which he pled guilty later that year.
They rematched in 2017 at UFC 214 when DC was the light heavyweight champion, and Bones took out Cormier with a third-round head kick and follow-up punches. However, the fight was overturned to a no-contest after Jones tested positive for turinabol, a performance-enhancing drug.
He had also failed a pre-fight drug test for cocaine for the UFC 182 bout and in 2016, Bones popped for clomiphene, an estrogen blocker.
While on the podcast, Cormier went off on Jones’ failed drug tests.
“He beats me, gets suspended for the first time,” Cormier said via MMA Junkie. “Next time, steroids, failed. Next time, steroids, failed. It’s like every time we fight, and you get suspended, if we go through the interaction, and you won the fight, that memory does not disappear.
“Even though they said it’s a no contest, (they) saw (me) lose. It’s the truth. All he gets is time. Jon Jones even then was making probably $5 million. So Jon Jones, 2017, fights me in Anaheim, wins the fight, gets that ‘and new champion’ from beating me. (Afterward) they find out he tests positive for steroids. They say, ‘Oh man, he’s suspended for 18 months.’ Now you get 18 months, (but) you still got your money. And you’re still only 25, 26 years old. I’m 37, 38 years old. You’re 27, and you get a year off. It’s horrible, but it’s easy for him to say water under the bridge. But for me, it’s like, ‘Man, you did some stuff to my career that never let me settle, because now I don’t know.’”
Cormier ‘Can’t Let It Go,’ Called Jones a ‘Cheater’
Cormier, who retired in 2020, would sleep better at night if Jones had beaten him without his marred past. But, because of the failed tests, DC “can’t let it go.”
“I could know through the fights that maybe this dude is just better than me,” Cormier continued. “But I also know that if you’re not doing the things that are boosting you, can you really work to the level that I’m working? … I can’t let it go. He’s a cheater.”
DC Compared Jones to Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya
According to Cormier, the promotion’s 185-pound king, Israel Adesanya, is doing everything that fans and pundits believed Jones would do in his UFC tenure without the history of test failures and outside-the-cage controversies.
“He’s got all these great instincts for fighting, but he just cannot allow himself to be as great as he is,” Cormier said. “That’s the one thing about Israel Adesanya that I said: He is becoming everything that everybody thought Jon Jones was going to be, in terms of expanding the box of what a mixed martial arts fighter can be. Because Jones was gonna be the man.
“If he stayed clean, he would’ve been the man, because people loved him. All athletes loved him and what he did.”