Kyle Terada – USA TODAY Sports
Jon Jones is now calling Daniel Cormier fat? As part of the UFC’s World Tour, which made a stop Tuesday at Club Nokia in Los Angeles at L.A. Live, the light heavyweight champion said Cormier was “irrelevant” and that you could see in his “physique” that he doesn’t want to work hard.
Easy there, Jon Judgmental. Cormier may appear a bit soft in the middle, but calling him out like he’s Freddy “Rerun” Stubbs without the suspenders is entirely unnecessary. That would be like calling Jones a drunkard because he was arrested and convicted of drunken driving in 2012. Just don’t go there.
At 5’10” and 235 pounds, Cormier is unlikely to appear in ESPN’s The Body Issue anytime soon. He’s a bit plump, but he’s no Roy Nelson and any real man knows not to judge another man’s fighting ability by his appearance. Cormier is a former NCAA Division I wrestling champion, who made the U.S. Olympic team. To suggest that any wrestler at that level doesn’t want to “work hard” is ridiculous.
Anyone who has watched Cormier fight knows that he is a top level athlete. He can hang with anyone in terms of stamina. He body slammed a huge and lumpy Josh Barnett to win the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix and outlasted Frank Mir in his first UFC fight.
Jones, who also said Cormier just wants to be famous and increase his Twitter followers, needs to learn how to stand up for himself without getting mean. He also needs to learn how to promote a fight without calling Olympic athletes fat. MMA is fighting, not a bodybuilding or beauty contest. The size of Cormier’s belly won’t matter if Cormier hits Jones in the face.
Joshua Molina is a mixed martial arts and pro wrestling writer for www.rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter @JECMolina and add him to your network on Google.
