Jon Jones has always acknowledged that the only thing to elude him throughout his championship career is the kind of one-shot knockout that is common among the heaviest divisions of the UFC.
While Jones has stoppages galore on his résumé, he has never landed the sort of clean finish that makes for prime highlight reel fodder. However, when he hears that fact pointed out by Daniel Cormier, as Cormier has done several times ahead of the pair's rematch at UFC 200, he can't help but laugh at the source.
"The funny thing about him saying that is, Daniel Cormier doesn't punch hard," Jones said this week on the UFC Unfiltered podcast. "I think the only person I can recall him knocking out is ‘Bigfoot' Silva. I'm not trying to offend ‘Bigfoot' Silva but, I mean, he's not known to have the strongest chin in the game. So, you name anybody else who he knocked out with one punch and walked away, I don't think I've seen it."
Jones and Cormier meet in a rematch on July 9 in the main event of UFC 200, and there has been no love lost between the two rivals since their first showdown.
Jones captured a decision over Cormier in Jan. 2015 to defend his long-held UFC light heavyweight title, however the roles have since been switched -- this time around Cormier is the reigning champion, while Jones is looking to reclaim that belt that was stripped from him for his mistakes outside the cage.
Jones said that one of the many lessons he learned from that first fight is that he has nothing to fear from Cormier on the feet, simply because he was able to absorb so many of Cormier's strikes and continue to walk forward unfazed.
"In my fight with Daniel Cormier, he always talks about how I was working his body and I kicked him in the ribs and I kneed him in the ribs, and these body shots that really sent a shockwave going through his body," Jones said. "But at no point in the fight did one of his punches do anything to me, or kicks. At no point in the fight did he get me to bleed. At no point in the fight did he get me to lose my breath or to look up at the clock out of frustration. At no point did he wobble me with a punch. I mean, Daniel Cormier caught me with like 60 uppercuts in that fight, and I'm exaggerating. Not one of those uppercuts did anything to me.
"Never made me stumble. None of his kicks made me back up or stop moving forward. So, he's trying paint this picture of me not being a powerful guy, but I kicked his ass. And I actually hurt him with strikes, where he did nothing to me. I've heard him in interviews say that he's going to walk me down and take me down right away because obviously I don't have the stopping power to stop him from walking forward. But the reality is, if I wanted to go out there and walk him down, take him down for the sixth time, he doesn't have the stopping power to stop me."
Jones has stated several times throughout the lead-up to UFC 200 that he is deep inside Cormier's head, just as he was ahead of UFC 182. As proof of that claim, Jones pointed to Cormier's decision to bring in 6'10" GLORY kickboxer Chi Lewis-Parry into his AKA camp to emulate Jones' size and length.
That decision, Jones believes, is telling as to how big the 6-foot-4 Jones must be in Cormier's mind.
"We've brought in absolutely zero special training partners from anywhere," Jones said. "I've been working with the same few guys my whole career. These guys, they'll go southpaw for me if I need them to go southpaw, they'll shoot on me if I need them to shoot on me more, they'll throw uppercuts more if I need uppercuts, overhands if I need overhands. I mean, DC getting a 6-10 guy shows how big I am in his head, how deep I am in his head.
"That's what he looks at me as, this freaking 6-10 monster."