At today’s media event in advance of UFC 178 at the MGM Grand, Daniel Cormier took no prisoners as he openly answered the media’s questions about his upcoming title shot against Jon Jones.
Here are some of the best highlights.
On whether he can surprise the champion…
“If anybody is going to be surprised, it is going to be him. I don’t think he has competed against someone who has competed at the level that I know how to compete.”
On his in-game strategy…
“I just go forward. I am not going to stand on the outside and allow for him to dictate where this fight takes place. I am going to go forward. I am going to get in his face from the very beginning of the fight. I am just going to make it dirty. There is no secret in how to fight Jon Jones. Just stay on the outside or you are going to lose.”
On whether he would have preferred to wait until his knee was fully healed before taking the match…
“It wasn’t that I needed to wait. I could fight today. I could fight in September. I am glad that the fight is happening right now. I have been wanting a title shot for a long time, so when it happens, it doesn’t matter.”
On what the match means to him…
“This is the culmination of a lifetime of athletics. This is a 15 year old kid going to Budapest Hungary to compete for a world championship.”
On the image that Jon Jones presents of himself on social media and how he often tweets things and then deletes them…
It seems like now he is embracing that role of ‘I am who I am.’ I am the best. You are either going to love me or you are going to hate me. I kind of enjoy that. I think it is refreshing. I think he was trying to protect an image that doesn’t really exist. I think people have seen who Jon really is and they don’t believe that who he portrayed himself as at the beginning of his career. I think it is time for him to step out of that shell and just be Jon Jones. He’s kind of a d–k.
