Almost three years ago, Jon Jones warned Daniel Cormier about the left head kick that cost him the fight at UFC 214.
There’s ‘Mystic Mac’, and there’s Jon Jones.
It could just be that, the left head kick that ‘Bones’ landed on Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 had been in the making for almost three years.
Jones, who recaptured the light heavyweight title he was forced to relinquish in 2015, warned Cormier about his tendency to dip to his opponent’s left prior to their first cancelled bout at UFC 178 in 2014.
The two light heavyweights got into a back-and-forth about Cormier’s weaknesses at a Los Angeles Q&A, and ‘DC’ was candidly open about his flaws.
“Don’t think you’re going to kick me in the head with your left leg,” Cormier told Jones in 2014 (h/t Seamus Raftery of Pundit Arena).
“Yes, we noticed that,” replied Jones. “Well, you better fix that.”
“I am smart enough to understand when there is a weakness and I go and fix it,” responded Cormier.
Cormier did, for the first two rounds, look to have adjusted to the mistakes he made at UFC 182, but Jones caught him off guard with a devastating left high kick in the third round which signaled the beginning of the end.
After staggering the former Olympian with a head kick, Jones sent Cormier spinning into the Octagon fence with a leg kick and proceeded to land his signature elbows and ground and pound, prompting veteran referee John McCarthy to intervene and stop the bout.
Cormier broke down in tears after the fight and released a statement thanking his fans for the support on Sunday.
Jones, who left no doubt as to who the pound-for-pound greatest is, called out heavyweight titan Brock Lesnar in the post-fight interview, telling the WWE star and former UFC champion that he plans to kick his ‘ass’.