Daniel Cormier reflects on Jon Jones pre-UFC 285 phone interview
In a recent upload to his YouTube channel, Cormier explained why he flipped off the camera immediately after the chat with Jones.
“With Jon Jones and I, for a long time, I wouldn’t call his fights,” Cormier said. “I would just tell my producers and tell the people: ‘I don’t want to do it’, because my emotions were so strong towards him, that I didn’t necessarily want to call Jon Jones’s fights. Especially while I was still competing…I’m not actively competing anymore, so I said to myself, let’s do this. Because these will be some of the bigger fights in the UFC, so I need to be there, do my job, and put this whole chapter behind me and show that I can be professional and call his fights to the best of my ability…
“I think I’ve done that…you kind of have to gauge the energy,” Cormier continued. “He said ‘Hi, can I speak to Daniel?’, which was very odd. Jon and I aren’t great friends, and probably never will be great friends, and that’s ok. He and I don’t need to feel like there’s an obligation for us to have a great relationship…guys, I wasn’t flipping off Jones! Everybody made a joke in the room afterward, so I flipped the bird. It was clever because it makes it look a certain way.”
Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier will likely come face-to-face soon. While they’ll never be close friends, it seems that both sides can put most, if not all, of their bad blood behind them.
