There is a lot of respect going on between ‘Bones’ and ‘The Notorious’ but Daniel Cormier doesn’t buy the nice guy act.
One of the stand-out moments from Friday’s UFC Unstoppable showcase in Las Vegas was the verbal joust between Jon Jones and current UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier.
Jones, who had his light heavyweight belt stripped from him last April, showed up at the event with a freshly minted belt of his own. Cormier was highly insulted.
The pair were always going to butt heads but it was a question about Conor McGregor that got the show on the road.
Earlier this week, McGregor told reporters that he considered himself to be the promotion’s best pound-for-pound fighter, ahead of the likes of Demetrious Johnson, Robbie Lawler and Jones, the current P4P top dog. Asked about McGregor’s bold claim, Jones responded:
“Conor is great for the sport. [To the Irish fans in attendance] Okay, calm down, calm down you Irish.
“Like I was saying, Conor is great for the sport. He is a magnificent competitor. He is someone I have been watching a lot. I love the way he is doing a lot of things.
“He is bringing a lot of notoriety to the sport. We have a lot of celebrities watching us so I’m definitely grateful that Conor is bringing that to the sport.
“And, you know, before I was the pound-for-pound number one, I used to look at Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre and I’d tell myself ‘One day that is going to be me’ and I’d tell myself why I could be that.
“So Conor definitely has the right attitude. That’s the way he should look at himself, as the pound-for-pound number one. But at the end of the day, it is all an opinion thing.
“In my defence, I’ve won nine world titles so, you know. But I do respect his competitive spirit.”
Cormier wasn’t having that. Booed roundly throughout the media event, he remarked, “I don’t agree with the entitled attitude Jon puts off.”
To a reporter, who asked a follow-up question, Jones said, “Thanks for clarifying. I had no idea what he was saying over all of those boos.”
