Daniel Cormier knows first hand what it’s like to beef with UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones and then fight him.
Cormier engaged in one of the biggest rivalries in UFC history with Jones, which resulted in two title fights. Cormier lost both fights to Jones – with their rematch being overturned to a no contest after Jones tested positive for a banned substance.
Interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) has been continuously poking at Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC) to try and get his long-awaited title-unification bout. He showed up with a rubber duck to Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 255 event at The O2 in London.
Cormier warns Aspinall that fighting Jones will be a different experience than anything he’s gone through before.
“He’s very mean,” Cormier said of Jones on “Good Guy/Bad Guy” with Sonnen. “He’s durable, he’s hard to fight, and Tom Aspinall is going to find that out, right? So yes, Chael, I love the duck, I love all the fun, I love all that, but at the end of the day when you get in there with that dude, don’t start rethinking things. Because (if) you start rethinking things in there with that dude, he’s going to run right through you. You cannot start going, ‘Hey, man, it’s a little harder than I thought,’ because he is going to put it on you.”
Aspinall provided a positive update on his fight with Jones after meeting with UFC brass this past week. The Brit has torn through his competition, with his past five wins all coming by Round 1 knockout, most recently when he defended his interim title against Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304.
Cormier doubts Aspinall will have another quick night against Jones and is curious to see how he handles the later rounds.
“I don’t believe Aspinall feels that way,” Cormier continued. “You know what the craziest thing is about being Tom Aspinall and being young and winning? The fans and the world can really make you go, ‘I am going to get this dude.’ And then you’re in there and you start losing, and you’re like, ‘God dang it, how am I losing?’ How does he deal with that if that starts to show itself in the fight or a long fight, because it’s going to be hard to get Jon Jones out of there in a minute.”
This news first appeared on MMA Junkie. Read the original article here
