There has been a lot of debate lately surrounding who is the MMA GOAT and now Daniel Cormier is chiming in by telling people why Jon Jones shouldn’t be in the race.
DC claims that Jones should be removed from the GOAT conversation due to the fighter’s multiple drug test failures.
“One of the most talented guys you’ll ever meet but again for me bad [drug] tests eliminate you from the conversation,” Cormier said to MMA Fighting. “I just cannot understand how that is so hard to comprehend in a sport where we’re fighting each other. In baseball, bad tests eliminate you from being considered and being in the Hall of Fame and you’re hitting a ball. You’re hitting an object that has no feeling. In fighting, you’re punching people, human beings, and you have bad tests that eliminates you. It’s just too dangerous. So I think when you start to think about the greatest of all time for all the things and all the great victories, you can’t look at those, me personally being a guy that those fights did really long term damage to my career, it’s hard for me to say [Jon Jones] is the greatest of all time when every time we fought, there was some sort of issue. That for me, it just kind of changes the conversation.”
Jones has failed a multitude of drug tests throughout his UFC tenure, with two of the most notable happening before UFC 200 and in-line with UFC 214.
Cormier suggests that fighters like Khabib Nurmagomedov and Demetrious Johnson should be talked about in the GOAT debate.
“It sucks, too, cause they’re so immensely talented,” Cormier said. “So talented that I don’t think any of those guys ever needed to do anything wrong and would have been clean. Like Khabib’s clean. Nobody has heard or suggested or thought that he’s done anything negatively outside of missing weight when he was on his way up. Those are the things that he is going to have to deal with in terms of negatively. Demetrious Johnson is actually completely clean. No missed weights, no failed tests, he’s just clean. Those are the types of guys you look at and say ‘that guy’s the greatest fighter of all-time.’”
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