UFC: Jones and Cormier fight at presser

http://www.mmafighting.com/2014/8/4/5968131/jon-jones-daniel-cormier-fight-at-ufc-178-media-day

Craaaazy shit. Anyone gonna watch this fight?

Heck yeah though I'll be honest Jones vs. Gustaffson sold me as a more interesting and better fight. Issues with this fight while Cormier is a former Strikeforce heavyweight champion and has the quickness from his wrestling days to get into Jones mug, he is only 5'11 which is small for both light heavyweight & heavyweight. The one thing Cormier will have coming into this fight is olympic wrestling skills, improved striking and superheroic cardio from his days training with current hw champ Cain Velasquez.

There must of been some serious bad blood between the two, most ufc fighters are professional as it comes when doing the media talks. Unsure if this was staged or not considering both Jones and Cormier are smart dudes and know what it takes to sell a fight to fans.

Up close vid of the bru-ha-ha

@i_stay_puft: looked like that small headbutt from Jones was enough to spark everything, I wouldn't say bad blood necessarily. Probably just neither guy wanting to give an inch or show any sign of backing down in the least.

I don't know man, Cormier been talking about Jones since his move to light heavyweight and I know Jones wanted Cormier before Gustaffson before Alexander got injured and had to pull out of the main event.

Taken from an MMA Fighting article but the start of the personal beef between the two.

The animosity between Jones and Cormier has exploded on social media since the bout was announced, with the two taking swipes at one another on Twitter. But the tension simmered long before the bout was announced. According to Jones, the bad blood started when the pair were introduced backstage at UFC 121 in Anaheim in 2010.

Jones claims he wasn't aware of Cormier's Olympic wrestling pedigree, and that Cormier took it to heart.

"The whole backstory between me and Daniel Cormier, it's really ridiculous," Jones said. "Its basically, I ran into the guy behind the stage at the Brock Lesnar-Cain Velasquezfight. I think he approached me, or I approached his group, I'm not sure. He introduced himself, so I sarcastically said to him, ‘So you're a wrestler,' he was like ‘yeah, I'm a wrestler blah blah blah.' I was like ‘dude, I bet I could take you down.' It was me trying to be personal, it was me trying to be friendly, it was me trying to have an inside joke with someone I didn't know.

"I had no clue he was such a prideful person, and at the moment I guess he just got really offended, which was very immature on his part," Jones continued. "He decided I had disrespected his great name he decided he didn't like me and had some sort of personal vendetta against me. I think the whole thing's silly."

Of course, that's only one side of the story. But either way, Jones says he has no hate for his opponent on Sept. 27.

"I don't dislike him," Jones said. "I think he's a great talker, I think he realizes that this could be his biggest payday, so he needs to sell the fight. I don't dislike him. I look at him as another pawn in this whole thing."

well the two have been jabbing each other on twitter for over a year . DC does not like him has said it stems back when he first met him and Jones was just rude to him.

My biggest takeaway from that. I can understand being prideful and Jones basically belittling something that he dedicated his life to, whether he felt he was joking or not. This gives them almost two months of back-and-forth, and trying to draw the fans who wanted to specifically see Jones-Gustafsson back into buying the PPV.

I love MMA, but good god this was embarrassing. Grown up athletes should be able to handle a fucking press conference without coming to blows. It's been dumb when it happened in boxing and it was dumb here. I'm sure it'll increase hype for this fight and probably increase the buyrate of 178 but this sort of shit hurts the sport in the long term.

Man that was pretty wild. The look of fear on Anik's face while he was trying to hold Jones back was kind of funny. Jones really had no trouble getting through that security to get at Cormier and drop some punches while he was on that collapsed backdrop. The head push is pretty common at weigh ins and stare downs for pressers, that push was pretty dumb though, he went straight for the neck.

That's Dave Sholler, not Jon Anik.
They do look alike though.

@rflx: I wasn't actually watching it live and in all the commotion of that video I didn't even notice it was Sholler lol.

Well good job guys, you just sold the fight. Dana White might express unhappiness over twitter, but I think deep down he is pretty stoked. I know I am.

I think it's company protocol in the UFC for everyone to look like Dana White.

I don't think it was staged but if it was it is clear Dave Sholler had no idea it was gonna happen.

Dave Sholler looks like he's trying to swap their souls.

I think the push was fine after the initial contact. It happens often, and usually it just ends there. I think Jones throwing that punch is really what made this shit get real. I thought it was great. Can't say how pumped I am for this fight.

The whole card is great. I was already completely sold. This sold it more.

And DC is the first challenger that I think has a real legit chance to beat Jones. I think DC crossed the line a bit with the shove. He did the same thing to Patrick Cummins during their stare down (with a lot less reasoning to do it) so it seems like a habitual thing on his part.

That being said, I'm rooting for DC. Jones still seems super fake to me. UFC put up interviews of both of them after the altercation (because they are so upset about it of course they just had to hype it up more). Jones response about it was so fake while DC seems genuine.

All in all, this doesn't hurt the fight at all so I dunno why people are complaining about "waaah it makes the sport look bad." How often do people post about MMA on this forum? Almost never. Well this got a person to make a thread about it.

Oh mean, what if UFC gradually becomes kayfabe, so slowly that no one notices? That would be the greatest.

This is an embarrassment to UFC. Jon Jones should be heavily fined for being the aggressor. I'm a big fan of doing wrestling-style promos on each other before a match to build up to a big confrontation, but doing this is just giving the main stream media everything they need to bury the sport.

Also, this segment on ESPN is so awful and immature on both sides.

This was really unprofessional on both sides. I know that DC is someone who hates it when someone gets into his face and that's why he pushed Jones off, but for the press, at least try to hold it on or else this fight might of not happened. The question is will this brawl help the UFC sell more PPV's because they'll market this as an authentic rivalry, or will people not want to see two guys who made asses of themselves be in the main event? If anything, this fight between the two fighters reminded me of the street brawl between Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick during the height of boxing's popularity.

Someone will have to explain to me how this is bad for the sport because it really just makes me want to watch their fight even more.

So the reason why this is considered bad for the UFC is that for the longest time back in the early days of UFC they had a stigma of being too brutal for the mainstream due to it's kinda no rules, no weight class, vale tudo style rules. UFC was very much a underground niche audience type of entertainment which hurt them when it came to generating money. You also have to consider at this time it was the height of boxing so people preferably would rather pay for a high profile boxing match who had the bigger names at the time.

When the Fertita's purchased the UFC and Dana White took charge they're main goal was to make it legitimate in the eyes of the main stream audience by getting it sanctioned in Nevada, signing some big names in the mma sport, setting up mma rules, setting up weight classes, and make it on par with any professional sports. By doing so they now generate huge amounts of money, sell out large arena's around the world, and can even say hey our fights are on network television, and we have an EA video game. They want to make sure they maintain that brand, primarily for advertisements and to make the mulah.

In the UFC they don't care if you talk smack to promote a fight, but putting your hands on another fighter outside of the cage before or after the fight is considered unprofessional and should not happen. In any other sport or work space same deal, the only difference is that in this sport they're paid to put the leather on each other inside the ring. While this helps sell fights they don't want people to think this is a wrestling style gimmick which could possibly hurt their promotion.

I'm sure Johnny Bones or Cormier won't get kicked out of the UFC but just an example of UFC stance on these types of shananigans a few years ago there was a fighter named Paul Daley who sucker punched another fighter named Josh Koscheck after the whistle blew. This fight was a big one since who ever won it would fight George St-Pierre for the welterweight title. The next day the UFC just cut Daley for the unprofessional behavior he showed after the fight.

People who really follow MMA don't like dickish behavior cause it's stupid and embarrassing. That's the reason why fans booed Lesnar after his wrestling style heel promo after he beat Carwin, that's why they booed Rousey after she refused to shake Tate's hand, that's why people kinda were in shock during the whole strikeforce brawl. People expect a certain level of professionalism from these athletes.

Man, people that complain about them being unprofessional are just a bunch of puppies. This is a fighting sport, not freaking basketball or soccer. If the two guys don't like each other so much that they want to throw punches at each other, the more excited you get for the fight. I can't wait to see Jones elbow Cormier to a bloody pulp.

@i_stay_puft: OK, I can definitely see where long term fans are coming from in that regard then. I've only started (somewhat consistently) watching UFC within the last year so I don't have that same frame of reference when it comes to situations like these.

@hustlerlt: If I want to watch childish fights between two idiots, I'll go to World Star Hip Hop. I expect the fighters in the UFC to remain professional until it's time prove who's the better man. I used to really like Jon Jones, but lately after his childish insults on twitter it's clear that he's an unlikeable dick.

I kind of feel responsible for this brawl, I made them a teaser hype trailer for the presser, apparently it got them too hyped.

This whole "this is bad for mma" is laughable, sure if you are pure heart fan of MMA this is unprofessional and not the kind of conduct you want to see out of two of the greatest fighters and martial arts practitioners in the sport today; but from someone who is involved in the actual business of MMA and UFC you have no idea how much traffic and interest this has created (and how down business has been lately since Anderson and GSP fell off the map). At the end of the day these guys are prize fighters first and athletes second, this is how they pay their mortgages and support their family, if getting rowdy at the presser (which has happned a million times in boxing and hasn't shut it down) going to promote their fight and increase PPV buys (and their cut of the PPV), then so be it.

Its gonna take something really horrendous to push mma out of popular culture at this point, I won't say its main stream yet but shit like this is not going to bring it back to 1990s. Plus there has been so many of these brawl in boxing that it is literally nothing new about it.

@turboman: That video is super funny but I think that's Jones as a professional athlete from you. Sure it sounds funky but no different from what a high profiles sports athlete would say. I think others have said it before but in this bout Jones has everything to lose while Cormier has everything to gain. Bones has sponsorship deals with Nike and the UFC so he'll be fine. Cormier while a former strikeforce heavyweight champion probably is still on the mid to bottom totem pole of earning in the UFC. This is Cormier biggest paycheck.

Did some checking and while they disclose amount made per fight and fight bonuses (aka knockout of the night / submission of the night) they don't send out any info on side deals like money made from buyouts for ppv. From what I'm seeing online.

Jones: Makes about 400k plus extra that could possibly put him close to the 1 million mark per fight.

Cormier: Last fight made 160k.

Guess that's just some perks of being a champion.

I'm impartial to it, the stuff that Jones and Cormier pulled was nothing compared to the stuff they train for before a fight with their team. I think the one liability was that other fans were super close to the brawl and could of been hurt.

Ok, found this Forbes write up from yesterday which kinda give you an idea of what UFC the "business / corporation" wants.

@i_stay_puft: Just a side note, I remember the reason for Rousey not shaking Tate's hand after the fight was because Tate was bad mouthing/insulting the people close to Rousey prior to the match and that was something that Rousey (who already hated Tate) took a big exception to. I'm not necessarily saying she's a saint since she talks a lot of smack prior to matches but she often acknowledges her opponents after the fact and won't show any kind of residual animosity towards them. Tate (and probably Cyborg, too, if she was in UFC) is currently the only exception IIRC.

Update: This just fucking happened. I'll write about it below, but spoiler block it, because you should just watch the video.

I cannot believe Jones threatened to kill Cormier like that. Dude is fucking cold as ice. Man.

@dusker: Video got taken down on youtube. New link.

While it does seem like it is staged I don't care. This whole thing is so entertaining and is actually making me more excited for the fight. The slight time delay between the two makes it even better.

I really hope it isn't staged though, the UFC is already becoming a little too much like Wrestling. Seems to be losing the path it was on to becoming a more legitimate sport. Hopefully this is just the usual hype up stuff being exaggerated, wouldn't be surprised if Jones and Cormier do have genuine animosity towards each other.

With all the shit they are saying about taking each other down just watch the fight end in like a 1st round standing KO.

I don't know, it doesn't seem staged to me. Yes, they staged some of the Sonnen shit, but Jones is a loose cannon, and I think this is him going off script for sure.

Not sure who ended out worst from a pr perspective. I thought in the initial espn interview it had to be Cormier cause of what Jones was spouting seemed super super not real. Once the background stuff showed, Cormier through that whole espn interview on and off seemed pretty arrogant of himself. I understand he's been top dog throughout his entire career in mma/wrestling and has some small man syndrome in him but come on dude. I actually kinda gained some respect for Jones even though he was primarily the aggressor. For the longest time I assumed Bones was trying to make himself out to be the golden boy without any of the antics and back and forth with his opponents. None of these things sold any fights cause he either never got into it (except for maybe Rashad) or just annihilated everyone his way. Basically John was suffering from Apollo Creed syndrome, where he was soooo good his fights were boring cause they were never a good matchup. I'm super glad that we have at least two contenders in Gustaffason and Cormier who seem like they'll put a decent challenge to Bones.

If I was picking a winner in this battle though I have to go with John Bones cause of that length. People primarily think Cormier was a tall dude cause he fought Heavyweight but the guy is only 5'11. Same height as Rashad Evans another opponent he is not only similar to in skill but an opponent Johnny Bones has fought before. While Cormier is the more decorated wrestler he is also about 2 years older than Rashad at this point in their careers. John will use his lenth to his advantage and Cormier will get pummeled as he goes in for takedowns.

Man, it's not that I'm the biggest Cormier fan, but the dude is legit one of the smartest and articulate fighters in high-level MMA right now. And Jones, well, he is definitely not. The dude's a crazy arrogant, pretentious asshole. He had to get a PR rep last year(?) to coach him because he was incapable of not saying the dumbest shit on camera that made people hate him, and then he got a bit more likeable. As a result, he fired the PR rep and just kept doing these awful interviews. He acts like he's fucking royalty and he doesn't give a shit about his fans or opponents. He's probably one of the least likeable UFC fighters next to Rory McDonald.

Man this was a amazing card and then jones backed out of the fight 2 days after my brother and I bought tickets and flights to vegas for it, Oh well should still be a good bday weekend in vegas.

@doerr007: Yeah I bummed to hear the news that Jones's injury delayed the fight until January 3 too, but that card should still be amazing and you'll probably end up loving it. You still get Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor in what could be the fight of the night on that card and the return of Dominick Cruz.

Yeah, Jones getting injured suuuuucks. Hope your weekend is still cool dude. Make sure to get over to Insert Coins!

Yeah it will be my 6th UFC but first time in Vegas so should be good time.