UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier will defend the gold against former champion Jon Jones at UFC 214.
During an appearance on The Luke Thomas Show, the champion took aim again at Jones and his past drug problems.
“These things are so public. These instances are so public,” Cormier said. “If he was doing all this stuff to himself and by himself and not affecting people, I probably wouldn’t say anything. But his indiscretions and mess-ups have greatly influenced my career, too, in the way I’m perceived. A lot of people may say, ‘Well, you would never be the champion if he didn’t do those things.’ Maybe he would’ve beat me again, but we would’ve fought already to decide that. But even though I am champion, because of the things that he’s done to get in that situation, people never really, truly respect me as they should. Not only are they not respecting me as they should, they’re discrediting everything I have done. So, it’s not off limits. And my whole thing is this. Some guy said this to me: ‘Daniel, if you knew the struggle, you would never say the things you say.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know the struggle, because I know how dangerous it is. So I don’t mess with it.’ … You’re not born with addiction issues. You make the choice to start to mess with that,” says Cormier.
Jones did defeat Cormier in the lone meeting at UFC 182, the win came by way of unanimous decision.
DC even claims that Jones has had a drug problem for his entire life.
“If you’re willing to do that right before a fight, and that’s something that can be detrimental to you going forward, why wouldn’t you do something that could help you?” Cormier said. “That’s my philosophy. I could be wrong. I do believe that this dude has been cheating his entire life, though. Why not?”
UFC 214 takes place on Saturday, July 29 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California with Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
