Jon Jones Plans On Trying To Wrestle Daniel Cormier
UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones will collide with Daniel Cormier at UFC 182, to open the new year for the promotion. The heated feud between Cormier and Jones has had the full attention of the media since it got interesting at the UFC 178 media day brawl. Since then, we’ve seen death threats and social media trolling galore.
So now UFC 182 is the next UFC event on the calender, and the champion says he is planning on using his wrestling against DC. Check out what “Bones” said to MMAFighting.com:
“I think I focus on it so much, I focus on their strengths so much that I almost adapt it,” Jones told MMAFighting.com. “I become so familiar with what they’re good at that I just almost adapt it into my psychology, into my skillset, and then subconsciously it just starts playing out in the fight. Doing what they do.”
“”I will try to wrestle Daniel Cormier. I definitely plan on making him work extremely hard for any takedowns he’s going for, and I’m definitely going to be looking for takedowns myself. I’m more than capable of taking him down, and I believe in my top game. So I’ll definitely look to attack Daniel at his strengths, and weaknesses.”
Cormier is definitely the more experienced wrestler, as an All-American at college and a multi-champion in freestyle world competition. That being said, Jones is a big guy and has experience as an All-American at junior level. Physically though, you’d think that DC would be the more imposing grappler. “Bones” continued:
“I grew up wrestling,” Jones said. “I started wrestling when I was 12 years old. I think a lot of people forget that, especially when I’m fighting a guy who’s competed on the Olympic level. They make me seem like I’m just a striker. But you know, my sense of wrestling is very strong. I would say that’s still my base. I have very successful stats in wrestling, pretty high takedown percentage and pretty outstanding takedown defense.”
“I’ve had all types of fights, but I like these ones. The little added motivation, [a guy] telling you you’re going to get your butt kicked and dominated. It just feels good. At the level that I’m at, just being in so many great fights, you need little things to keep that fire going. Not only going, but raging.”
We’ll see how it pans out when the fight finally goes down on January 3rd 2015, but it’s been a long time coming. After the fight was postponed from UFC 178 because of Jones’ knee injury, we’ve been left waiting an awfully long time for this grudge match to come to fruition. As it stands, this could well be the biggest rivalry in modern MMA.
Do you think Jones will try to outwrestle Cormier, or will he choose to use his huge reach to stand and strike with the shorter DC?
