Throughout the course of their pre-fight pressers, Daniel Cormier had been vocal about Jon Jones’ alleged PED use. Apparently, those were not just words for show, as he is in full belief that his long-time rival had indeed been using banned substances for the greater part of his UFC career.
In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani, Cormier responded with a firm yes when he was asked if he believed Jones was indeed on something illegal when they first fought each other in early 2015.
“I do, 100%,” Cormier said. “Physically, there were some differences, but also, logically, there were differences. Medically, there were differences. There were a lot of reasons as to why it’d point to him doing stuff like that.
“If he’s gonna do things to sabotage himself, why wouldn’t he do things to enhance himself? He tested positive for those two (substances), his brother tested positive for the same two things, the same exact time. There are just so many reasons to believe that he had been cheating.”
Jones is coming off a one-year USADA suspension after testing positive for hydroxy-clomiphene and Letrozole. This led to the cancellation of the rematch with Cormier at UFC 200.
One thing that was different about Cormier, on the other hand, was his staredown with Jones during the pre-fight media presser on Wednesday. While he did admit that he would usually be the one to do the talking during their face-offs through the years, he was dead silent this time around, and for a good reason.
He also revealed that he saw something different in Jones.
“I wanted to look him directly in the face and show him (that) time for talk is done,” Cormier said. “I never broke eye contact with him, and I wanted to look directly into his soul and see what he told me. And I saw him shift. I saw his eyes look at my chest, and look at my legs, and look around, and have a really difficult time just staying face-to-face.
“What I saw in Jon Jones was he’s a confident man, but he’s putting on a little bit more than (what) people would recognize until they’re two inches from his face like I saw,” he continued. “He may be confident, but in those eyes, I see more doubt than I have ever seen, and I believe there are a number of reasons for that.”
Cormier vs. Jones 2 takes place as the headliner of UFC 214 on Saturday, July 29th, at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
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