The war of words between reigning UFC light-heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier and his returning predecessor Jon Jones has without a doubt been the highlight of last week’s UFC Unstoppable press conference.
Cormier earned a considerable amount of boos for trying to put the blame on Jones for all his past mistakes. Jones, on the other hand, received a warm welcome by the attending fans and was cheered for almost every statement he made. It was obvious that Cormier didn’t like that situation at all and got frustrated with the fan’s reactions.
His teammate, UFC 185-pound champion Luke Rockhold, who was also on stage at the presser and had his share of verbal warfare with former champ Chris Weidman, feels that Cormier might have made a mistake by letting the fan’s boos and Jones’ comments get into his head too much.
“He played into the ‘Jon Jones being the bad guy’ role too much and let the boos get to him,” Rockhold explained on The Underground. “Just got to block that out. Be yourself. Who cares? If the people like you, they like you. If they don’t, they don’t. If they like Jon Jones, who the f**k cares? He let that get to him, no doubt.”
Rockhold even went so far as to giving Cormier a little pep talk behind the stage as soon as the presser was over.
“A little bit,” Rockhold admitted. “There’s not much to say at this point. I think he kind of lost track of what he was doing there for a second and played too far into ‘bad guy’ Jon Jones and tried to beat him down over outside the cage [issues]. Focus on the technique. Focus on the fight and what’s going to happen. That’s all I had to say, really.”
Cormier lost a championship fight against Jones in January of last year. After Jones got stripped of the title later in 2015 due to a felony hit-and-run incident, Cormier won the vacant belt against Anthony Johnson and later defended it against Alexander Gustafsson. Cormier and Jones will face each other again at UFC 197 on April 23. Rockhold will defend his belt against Chris Weidman at UFC 199 in June, also in a rematch.
Transcription via MMA Fighting