Cormier and Jones Fight for History

Every year or two, a fight emerges that promises to significantly impact the historical perspective of a division. More rarely, a fight can threaten to change our view of the sport as a whole, challenging opinions so widely held they have become an accepted fact.

Jon Jones is the best light heavyweight fighter there has ever been. He is the single best fighter ever in a division that was mixed martial arts’ marquee weight class for years. The sport of boxing has a history spanning hundreds of years and every great pugilist it has produced has an intriguing cross-generational what if? matchup. Partially due to the relative infancy of organized MMA competition, there is no intriguing what if? fight for Jon Jones with light heavyweights from another generation. He beats them all, and most with ease, as he has done to the light heavyweights of his own generation.

Jones is one of a few fighters with a legitimate claim at being the best fighter of all-time, despite just passing his thirtieth birthday. To beat Jon Jones is to alter history, and challenge established facts.

If Daniel Cormier cannot be considered the second greatest fighter in the history of the light heavyweight division, it is only because of his lack of reps in the division. Cormier won the first thirteen bouts of his career as a heavyweight, and stepped aside from a chance at becoming the division’s top fighter solely out of deference to his teammate and then UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez. At light heavyweight, he has defeated the top fighters of his generation, won the world championship, and defended it. He has not, however, defeated Jon Jones.

Cormier and Jones fight for the second time on Saturday at UFC 214 in a fight that boasts true historical magnitude. Both have become all-time greats not just in the division but in the sport as a whole. Therefore, any result is significant, and some of the possible results would hold major historical implications.

This period in the light heavyweight division’s history will be viewed through the lens of Cormier vs. Jones. UFC 214 is the fifth time they have been scheduled to fight over the past three years, and in that time it would be hard to find a story or interview with one of them in which the other was not mentioned. They are the only champions the division has known in that time, and the lone legitimate loss on either of their records is Cormier’s loss to Jones from 2015.

Success has linked them together for the past three years, and fighting is the only way one can break away from the other. Jones vies to finally move past Cormier with a decisive victory on Saturday’s. Cormier’s goal is to stretch it out: he wants to defeat Jones on Saturday, which would be one of the biggest victories in the history of MMA, and beat him again in a rubber match to claim undoubted supremacy.

Although the sporting stakes are enormous, it would be a disservice to pretend Cormier and Jones are limited to a sporting rivalry.

From the night they met in October 2010, Cormier and Jones have harbored dislike for one another. They brawled at a media event in August 2014. Split-screen press interviews have devolved into verbal pissing contests. Antagonizing tweets were sent and followed by angry Instagram posts. There have been heated press conferences. Cormier has hurled a shoe and a water bottle at Jones.

The UFC has been home to countless feuds in the past twenty-four years. Some of them were contrived by one fighter for publicity. Sometimes fighters conspired to publicly feud to attract more eyeballs. Other times, the UFC has sold wolf tickets and made feuds seem like something more than they were. In many cases, the bad blood has been real and the fight ended any ill feelings.

With Cormier and Jones, there is never been any question as to the legitimacy of their mutual animosity. The end of a fight is usually a sobering time; even enemies may hug, shake hands, or otherwise exchange at least brief pleasantries after pounding each other in the face. In their 2015 bout, Jones raised his arms in victory with time still on the clock. Cormier threw late punches, and Jones taunted him after the bell. “I’m sorry that I’m being classless right now,” Jones said in the cage after the fight. “I do not like [Daniel Cormier], and this is why I’m being this way.”

Jones won a clear decision when he defended the light heavyweight championship against Cormier two-and-a-half years ago. They fought a grueling fight at a high pace for three rounds, which slowed Cormier down. Jones built a three rounds-to-one lead by the fifth round, where Cormier did not or could not fight with the urgency he needed to come back to win.

In the post-fight press conference, Jones stated that his goal was to become the greatest fighter of all time, and that he believed he could reach that status before the end of the year. However, he never gave himself the chance.

Three days after beating Cormier, news broke that Jones had failed a random drug test for cocaine one month prior to the bout. He entered rehab for evaluation and left the following day, later stating that specialists determined he did not require in-patient treatment.

In April of that year, Jones fled from the scene of an accident after crashing into another driver. The UFC stripped him of his championship and removed him from a May title defense against Anthony Johnson. Cormier took Jones’ place against Johnson with the newly vacant light heavyweight title on the line. Cormier won, and defended the title against Alexander Gustafsson before Jones was ready to return.

The UFC scheduled a Cormier vs. Jones rematch for April 2016, but Cormier withdrew from the fight with an injury a few weeks before the fight. Jones faced replacement Ovince Saint Preux in his stead, winning a lopsided decision.

Cormier vs. Jones went back on the docket in the main event of UFC 200. Three days before the fight, the results of one of Jones’ out-of-competition drug tests came back positive for clomiphene, a banned estrogen blocker. He would ultimately receive a one year suspension. Cormier fought and defeated last minute replacement Anderson Silva at UFC 200. In April of this year, he successfully defended his title against Anthony Johnson.
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Daniel Cormier has now held the light heavyweight championship for more than two years. He is as deserving of his title as any champion in the sport and proven it, but he is continually dogged by the fact that he did not beat Jon Jones to take the title. If things had played out different, Cormier may have fought his way back to a championship opportunity and defeated Jones. However, as things stand, Cormier has directly benefitted from the personal issues that have largely kept Jones out of the cage since the last time they met. Perhaps Jones would look back on a second victory over Cormier as finally putting his issues behind him.

For Cormier, Saturday is the most important fight of his life. A lifelong athlete, Cormier has fallen just shy of the top of the mountain at every major level. Although he is the defending champion, he is perceived as #2. Only beating Jones can change that perception. Victory would be monumental – a win remembered for years to come. It would legitimize his championship reign and change how we discuss his career.

Cormier is certainly the underdog in the fight. He beats the best fighters in the world by pressuring them and wearing them down, but he was the one worn down when he last faced Jones. The quality that makes Cormier a champion is recovery. He has been hurt in fights and immediately stood back up and returned to work. He has been taken down and immediately fought back to his feet. Jones may slow Cormier down as he did in their last bout, but stopping him is another feat entirely.
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To win, Cormier needs to take the fight to Jones and keep a high pace for three rounds. That is what he tried to do in 2015, but his pace was not steadily high enough. Jones speedily beat him to the punch and kick. Getting inside and tying Jones up to stifle significant offense is key.

Three of the best rounds of his career are what Cormier needs to win. The early rounds are of particular importance, because it is hard to see Cormier keeping up with Jones to win both rounds four and five. Cormier also has power in his hands, making a stoppage with strikes a possibility, but Jones has always shown a strong chin.

Jon Jones would strengthen his case for being the greatest fighter of all-time with another victory over Cormier. His greatest advantage in the fight may be physical. In addition to being the quicker fighter, Jones is long and strong. Cormier had great difficulty dealing with that length when searching for a takedown in their last outing.

Jones is more than comfortable in the clinch and typically out-maneuvered Cormier in that area last time, but that is also the place where Cormier does some of his best work. Fighting at range gives Jones more tools to work with, and he can make Cormier chase him there. However, given Jones’ history, he is likely to take the fight into Cormier’s wheelhouse to prove a point. He will happily clinch and wrestle with Cormier, where he maintained an efficient output in their first fight.

With Jones coming off a long layoff, Cormier may try to get at him early. Weathering rough seas in the early period may open up opportunities for Jones later on. Cormier needs a high output to win, but the higher the output, the quicker he will tire. For some period, whether one, two, three, or four rounds, the fight will be closely contested; even as Cormier’s athleticism has declined at age 38, he is tough enough and skilled enough to take the fight to Jon Jones for at least some portion. However, Jones should have the stamina advantage, and at some point Cormier will slow and Jones will pull ahead. The only mysteries are when will it happen, and who will be in the lead when it happens?

No matter the outcome, both will face questions about the other for the rest of their lives. At this stage, the difference is that Daniel Cormier’s career is significantly defined by Jon Jones, while the opposite is not the case. Cormier has a chance to change that.

Jones has stated that he viewed his rivalry with Cormier as his Ali vs. Frazier feud. Frazier defeated Ali in the Fight of the Century on March 8, 1971. Three years later, Ali beat Frazier in a forgettable rematch with lesser stakes. The following year, Ali topped Frazier in the epic Thrilla in Manilla. Although it did not have hype of the Fight of the Century entering the bout, the memory of Manilla has resonated more strongly than that of the 1971 bout.

The comparison is far from perfect, but it illustrates how much of the Cormier vs. Jones story may remain to be told. No matter the outcome, Cormier vs. Jones II is one of the most important fights in MMA history. Depending on the outcome, its significance may grow larger yet.

Dan Plunkett has covered MMA for 411Mania since 2008. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @Dan_Plunkett.