The headlining bout of UFC 232 will feature two men Daniel Cormier is very familiar with, Jon “Bones” Jones and Alexander “The Mauler” Gustafsson. Cormier lost to Jon Jones in their first meeting at UFC 182 via unanimous decision, but after the title was stripped from Jones, Cormier would claim the championship and then go on to defeat Gustafsson in his first title defense via split decision.
As someone who has shared the Octagon with Jones and Gustafsson a total of three times and who is a student of the game, Daniel Cormier is one the most qualified people to predict how the Jones/Gustafsson rematch will go. And at UFC 230 media day, the champ-champ did just that (via MMANytt):
“I think Jones beats Gustafsson,” Cormier said on Thursday at the UFC 230 media day. “I fought them both and with Alexander, outside of that big knee, nothing really hurt or anything. He kneed me in the third round but that was a round I won probably four minutes and 30 seconds of until he landed the knee, that’s why I won the fight. The second round he cut me, but he won that round based on the fact that he got takedowns. That was at a time where I fought every takedown so hard that if I ever gave up a takedown, I lost the round.”
Daniel Cormier takes nothing away from Gustafsson as a fighter and admits that the Swede poses some threats to Jones that he does not. But ultimately, the double champ believes that Jones’s skill set will prove just to versatile for Gustafsson once again:
“He’s a good fighter and he will present challenges to Jones because of his length that I can’t really present Jones with. But I think that Jones is just better. I know that when I’m fighting him, there are a number of things I need to worry about that I didn’t necessarily feel that against Alexander.”
Do you agree with Daniel Cormier’s prediction for the UFC 232 main event between Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson?
