Daniel Cormier has launched a passionate defence of his teammate Islam Makhachev amid calls for him to be stripped of his title.
The lightweight champion has been friends with Cormier since he started training at AKA in his early UFC career, and has gone on to become a record-setting title holder. He has defended the 155lb belt more than any other fighter in history, breaking a record set in BJ Penn’s reign.
However, there have been calls to strip him of his title due to his lack of interest in facing Ilia Topuria, who stepped up from featherweight to challenge for gold at lightweight. He would rather face a contender with a win at the weight, or move up to challenge at 170lb should Belal Muhammad lose his belt.
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Daniel Cormier slams Jon Jones while defending Islam Makhachev
Daniel Cormier is not a keen on the idea of Islam Makhachev being stripped, particularly given his activity as champion. He noted the hypocrisy of asking the lightweight champion to fight so regularly given that Jon Jones as heavyweight champion is allowed to fight once every year-and-a-half, if at all.
Jones is supposedly due to face Tom Aspinall, but that fight has never felt further away than it is currently. And Cormier, talking to Chael Sonnen on their Good Guy/Bad Guy ESPN Show explained Jones is “holding on to the belt and not really doing anything,” which he noted to be “odd”.
“You know what’s annoying to me?” He continued. “is “Islam Makhachev has said, ‘I don’t want to really fight Ilia Topuria because he’s a 145-pounderer and I’ve done that. Give me somebody else.’ People are like, ‘Take the belt off him, he should be stripped.’
“People are like ‘it’s either strip or defend for Makhachev’. Why? In the last two years, he fought Volk, he fought Dustin, he fought Volk again and he fought Moicano. He fought ’em all, he’s fought four times. In that amount of time, the heavyweight champ fought once.”
Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones had bitter feud during their heydays
Back when Cormier was a fighter, he conquered all comers throughout his career aside from one; Jon Jones. While he did lose twice to Stipe Miocic at the tail end of his run, he did also knock out the legendary heavyweight to end his iconic title reign, but he never managed to get the jump on Jones.
Over the years, Cormier and Jones shared one of the most bitter feuds in the sport’s history over the light-heavyweight title. Between drug test failures and other cancellations, they managed two squeeze in two fights from five official bookings, with one result being overturned.
The first time, Jones won a dominant decision at UFC 182. He went one better and viciously knocked out Cormier at UFC 214 with a big head kick, but that result is now a No Contest after he failed a drugs test, which was his second time failing after their UFC 200 main event was cancelled for a positive test.
As a result of that lack of a definitive end to their feud, Cormier and Jones have never really been able to patch it up. They remain somewhat respectful after the fact, but there is always an air of discomfort between the pair.