Daniel Cormier reacts to Jon Jones considering retirement soon

Daniel Cormier believes UFC champion Jon Jones pondering retirement stems from the dearth of a problem at heavyweight.

It took Jones simply over two minutes to submit Ciryl Gane and declare the vacant heavyweight title at UFC 285 in March. He’s anticipated to defend his title in opposition to former champ and arguably the best heavyweight of all time Stipe Miocic.

Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) mentioned retirement if he will get previous Miocic (20-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC), and Cormier mentioned that’s possible as a result of heavyweight wasn’t the strict take a look at he anticipated it to be.

“He’s nonetheless the perfect on this planet,” Cormier mentioned on his ESPN present “DC & RC.” “He was excited concerning the concept of going to struggle at heavyweight. It was the problem and one thing that scared him, however do you suppose that possibly it was simpler than he might have thought? He received by way of Ciryl Gane really easy.

“The place’s that problem? The place’s that factor that scares him? As a result of that’s what Jones spoke about earlier than the struggle, being scared once more, one thing that was harmful. Possibly he doesn’t really feel that. Possibly he doesn’t really feel like that’s going to be his on a regular basis at heavyweight.”

Regardless of ex-champ Francis Ngannou not being a part of the UFC roster, Cormier thinks there are a number of robust fights for Jones at heavyweight that might be value him sticking round.

“I want to see him proceed to struggle,” Cormier added. “I want to see him struggle guys like Sergei Pavlovich. I want to see him in there with Stipe Miocic. And I do imagine that there are some challenges for Jon Jones. I didn’t count on the Ciryl Gane struggle to go in the way in which that it did, though it was all the time a chance. However that isn’t his hardest struggle. I believed it was. It’s not his hardest struggle, although. There are a pair on the market nonetheless.”

A kind of, as Cormier mentioned, is Pavlovich, who’s on a streak of six consecutive first-round knockout wins. One other could possibly be Tom Aspinall, who mentioned he thinks Jones wouldn’t see the worth in taking the risk of preventing the likes of him and Pavlovich.