Cormier Says He Should Be Ranked Ahead Of Jones On Pound-For-Pound List
Speaking to UFC.com, Daniel Cormier said that 2018 was the greatest athletic year he’s ever had and that he should be ahead of Jon Jones in the pound-for-pound rankings.
“I think that was probably the greatest athletic year I’ve ever had. Not only from the success I had, but just everything – my life, my body holding up, my ability to train, my team in order – everything was good from top to bottom. It was a really, really good year for me.”
Cormier says that he has to be considered as one of the best ever.
You’re looking at a guy who now stands among the greatest fighters to ever do it. It’s hard to really list a group of fighters as the best and leave me off if you’re being objective. To lose two fights to one guy and that’s it in your whole career and blaze through everybody else. Outside of those Jones fights, the toughest fight I ever had was [Alexander] Gustafsson. Everyone else I kind of buzzed right through.”
The current UFC heavyweight champion acknowledges that it would have been the perfect ending, if he had hung up his gloves after he beat Stipe Miocic to become the double champion. But said he wasn’t ready to call it a day then.
“You can’t help but think about that as you start to get older, but then you also think, ‘Obviously I haven’t slowed down; I just became heavyweight champion of the world six months ago. So it’s finding a balance in terms of when to be done, as opposed to when to keep going. And I think as competitors, you have to really, truly find that right time.
“There’s nothing left to prove. But I’m not a guy that has been fighting just to prove things. I fight because I love to compete. It’s never been that I have to prove that I’m the best. That was never the reason why I fought to begin with. So if the desire is there to compete, then I’ll go and I’ll fight. But if it’s not, then I won’t. If I get ready to start getting into a training camp and I just don’t feel it, I won’t do it. That’s the beauty of being where I am today and being so at ease with my career and with my place and my standing in the history of the sport. If I get into a training camp and I just don’t have this in me no more, I don’t have the desire to train as hard as I want to train, I’ll just stop. I fight because I still love to compete, and I still want to compete, that’s why I’m gonna fight.”
Cormier’s name will always be associated with Jones but the AKA man insists that he’s now established a name outside of Jones and the light heavyweight division.
“For what I’ve done, winning the heavyweight title, everything was so tied to him [Jones] initially that me getting the heavyweight title was something so completely separate, especially being that I was undefeated in the weight class prior. Going up into a weight that was always thought to be my weight class, winning the UFC title, it helped me. I think for Jones to truly get back everything that he’s lost, it would be good for him and I to fight again. For me, I’ve established my career outside of him. He’s done things outside of me, too, but for him, it would be good if he got to fight me again.”
He may have lost both of his encounters to Jones but ‘DC’ is loving the fact that he sits above him in the pound-for-pound rankings. And insists that he should be ahead of his rival.
“It feels great. Even when they keep releasing the pound-for-pound rankings and I’m ranked above him and he goes, ‘That’s BS,’ absolutely not. You are a great fighter, but you’re a great fighter at the weight class you’ve always stayed at. I’ve done it in multiple weight classes and pound-for-pound says it’s a fighting style that translates across weight classes, and I’ve been the champion in two of them. So I think I am the definition of pound-for-pound.”
See also: