Daniel Cormier’s been taking the month of October to rest up after a grueling win over Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 192, but he said on Wednesday night that he’s aiming to set up his next fight this week.
With Jon Jones now reinstated, that bout is likely to be next, and while co-hosting Wednesday’s UFC Tonight program on Fox Sports 1 Cormier said he’d be traveling to Las Vegas on Thursday to discuss his next move with the UFC.
Cormier expects the Jones fight to be next, and made it clear during Wednesday’s broadcast that it’s the fight he absolutely wants next. Furthermore, he believes it’s the fight that would have been happening at this point whether Jones’ hit and run happened or not.
“If Jones beat me in January, and he said, ‘Daniel you have to earn your way back,’ I would have fought the two best guys in the division, Anthony ‘Rumble Johnson’ and Alexander Gustafsson, to get back there,” Cormier said. “And if Jones was still the champion, I would have earned that rematch. The thing is, I’m the champion now and I want fight him. I’m willing to give him a chance at the belt. It’s great for the fans and great for the organization because he’s the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet. We should be fighting. He beat me, too. I said from the moment we walked out of the Octagon on January 3, I’d like a rematch. Now I’m the champ and he’s the challenger. Once they lock us in the Octagon, we’ll make for some good business and good fireworks. I can’t wait to fight him again.”
Penick’s Analysis: He’s got a point about potentially haven gotten to this fight anyway, but on the same hand, he wouldn’t have fought Rumble when he did, and Jones may have defended the belt twice more and left the division. Getting his rematch with Jones and a chance to prove himself the better fighter is his best case scenario here. I still think we see this fight Super Bowl weekend, and if he’s already meeting with the UFC tomorrow, that’s still very much in play.
[Photo (c) Jayne Kamin-Oncea via USA Today Sports]
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