After two fights where he both lost, Daniel Cormier was able to come to a conclusion when it comes to facing Jon Jones. According to “DC,” the only chance to defeat the reigning 205-pound champion is if the fight was done at heavyweight.
Having faced Jones himself, former title challenger Anthony Smith disagrees with Cormier’s assessment.
“I like Daniel, I work with Daniel, I disagree with Daniel,” Smith said on a recent episode of MMA on SiriusXM (transcript by MMA Fighting). “I don’t see—I hear him talk about Jon Jones like that all the time. I didn’t see that. Like, I didn’t feel like that when I was in there with Jon Jones. Obviously, I had my own issues and I think later on I’ll write a book and I’ll tell the entire story about it, but I don’t feel like that. I didn’t feel like I was in there with a dude that was unbeatable.
“And when I hear DC talk sometimes, I get the feeling as if he’s talking about someone who’s unbeatable. Especially a man who was winning the second fight and just got clipped and got put down. I mean, I think all judges had DC up, he was winning every minute of every round up to the point he got kicked.”
“Lionheart” did acknowledge that a heavyweight would have an edge over Jones. And if he did have the size advantage, Smith feels he would have an easier time dealing with “Bones.”
“So I always feel really uncomfortable when I hear DC talk like that,” he said. “One, because I don’t see that when I seen him fight him the second time, I seen a guy that was definitely beatable. And I didn’t feel like that when I was in there with Jon Jones.
“Would some more size absolutely help? For sure,” Smith continued. “If I was bigger and a couple of inches taller and had a few more inches of reach on me, absolutely that’s easier to do, for sure.
“Also, if you’re a heavyweight and you’re a big power striker, maybe you can get away with putting Jon Jones out without having to be better than him for an entire fight. That’s how I look at it.”
Jones will defend his title for the third time against the undefeated Dominick Reyes at UFC 247 on February 8th in Houston, Texas.