Daniel Cormier believes UFC champion Jon Jones thinking retirement stems from the lack of a challenge at heavyweight.
It took Jones just over two minutes to submit Ciryl Gane and claim the vacant heavyweight title at UFC 285 in March. He is expected to defend his title against former champ and arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time Stipe Miocic.
Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) mentioned retirement if he gets past Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC), and Cormier said that’s likely because heavyweight wasn’t the stern test he expected it to be.
“He’s still the best in the world,” Cormier said on his ESPN show “DC & RC.” “He was excited about the idea of going to fight at heavyweight. It was the challenge and something that scared him, but do you think that maybe it was easier than he may have thought? He got through Ciryl Gane so easy.
“Where’s that challenge? Where’s that thing that scares him? Because that’s what Jones spoke about before the fight, being scared again, something that was dangerous. Maybe he doesn’t feel that. Maybe he doesn’t feel like that is going to be his everyday at heavyweight.”
Despite ex-champ Francis Ngannou no longer being part of the UFC roster, Cormier thinks there are several tough fights for Jones at heavyweight that would be worth him sticking around.
“I would like to see him continue to fight,” Cormier added. “I would like to see him fight guys like Sergei Pavlovich. I would like to see him in there with Stipe Miocic. And I do believe that there are some challenges for Jon Jones. I did not expect the Ciryl Gane fight to go in the way that it did, even though it was always a possibility. But that isn’t his hardest fight. I thought it was. It’s not his hardest fight, though. There are a couple out there still.”
One of those, as Cormier said, is Pavlovich, who is on a streak of six consecutive first-round knockout wins. Another could be Tom Aspinall, who said he thinks Jones wouldn’t see the worth in taking the risk of fighting the likes of him and Pavlovich.
