Daniel Cormier is just days away from defending the UFC light heavyweight title for the first time, but he was most definitely keeping tabs on Jon Jones' plea hearing Tuesday morning in New Mexico.
When contacted by MMAFighting.com, Cormier already knew all the details surrounding the hearing and offered the following reaction:
"When this incident happened, the thought wasn't really that Jon was going to serve jail time," Cormier said. "The hope was that there would be some sort of punishment for his actions, and that was the punishment levied by the judicial system. The system is in place for a reason, so we have to all agree that it's fair.
"Jon is not getting off scot-free. He will now be able to help young children and talk to them so that they don't make mistakes like he has over the course of his life.
"Hopefully on the other side he becomes a better person and he gets back to doing what he does best, and that's fighting."
Jones, the former UFC light heavyweight champion, plead guilty on a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident and was granted a conditional discharge by Judge Charles Brown in Bernalillo County Second Judicial District Court on Tuesday. He was given 18 months of supervised probation and is required to make 72 community service appearances. As of now, he is still suspended by the UFC for his actions in April.
Cormier meets Alexander Gustafsson in the main event of UFC 192 this Saturday night in Houston. His lone professional loss came against Jones in January.
"I would love to fight him," he added. "I have to get by Alexander Gustafsson first, and then we'll see what happens. But yeah, I would love for it to be Jon Jones next."