Although he doesn’t get the credit he deserves, Daniel Cormier is probably one of, if not the greatest MMA heavyweight of all time. With his insane strength, unbelievable wrestling, and meanness in the Octagon, ‘DC’ was an absolute menace in his day, picking up heavyweights like babies and slamming them on the ground. But alas, the UFC commentator is best remembered for his memorable rivalry with Jon Jones, in which he was beaten by ‘Bones’ on both of their UFC 182 and UFC 214 clashes.

But since Cormier moved down to light heavyweight to fight Jones, one of the biggest what-ifs in the sport is—what would have happened if Jones had moved up to heavyweight and fought ‘DC’ there? Well, Jones answered this very question in a recent interview. And the GOAT contender’s answer has really ticked off Cormier.

“Yeah, there’s another quote I want you to react to. So, Jones said this recently, ‘I believe I beat Daniel Cormier at heavyweight worse than I beat him at light heavyweight,'” ‘DC’ was asked by ESPN’s Molly Qerim on First Take.

“Oh, ok… Let’s make this true to everybody,” Cormier said. “Udonis [Haslem] will tell you, because he saw it, Udonis likes watching fighting. Jon Jones, when I was actively fighting, said: ‘I would not fight Daniel at heavyweight because it gives him an advantage. That’s where he’s best at.’ Molly, I’m 46 years old. I am retired. I swing a golf club in my free time. Yeah, he’s out of his mind.”

And Cormier is absolutely correct here– Jones did say back in his 205 days that he wouldn’t want to fight ‘DC’ at heavyweight since that would give the Lousianan a huge advantage over him.

“I’m a realist. Daniel Cormier is a special athlete and everyone can be beat, and I think my greatest chance of losing would be to a guy like Daniel Cormier with giving him a power and strength advantage over me,” Jones told ‘TNT Sports’ in 2019.

“It just doesn’t make sense. Right now, I make light heavyweight very easily, and it just would make no sense to fight a guy who, I think, is on your level and to give him a size advantage—I’m not doing it,” Jones told TNT Sports in a 2019 interview when Cormier was still fighting,” the then-light heavyweight champ added. So what changed? Why does Jones think he would beat DC at heavyweight now?

Jon Jones feels this one thing means he could have beaten ‘DC’ at heavyweight

The simple answer to why Jon Jones now thinks he could have beaten ‘DC’ at heavyweight and beat him even worse is because he feels his kicks are more lethal at the heavier weight class.

“Peak Bones vs. Peak DC at heavyweight? I believe I beat Daniel Cormier at heavyweight worse than I beat him at light heavyweight. I feel like my speed has transferred over in a way that his hasn’t. I think I beat him up pretty worse at heavyweight. I kick harder. I know he punched harder as a heavyweight, but I kick a lot harder. You all see what my kicks did to him in the [second] fight,” Jones told Jeffrey Woo in a recent interview.

The first Jones-Cormier fight saw ‘Bones’ beat ‘DC’ at his own game and outwrestled the Louisianan to win a unanimous decision at their UFC 182 clash in 2018. The second time around, at UFC 214, however, things were very different. Jones seemingly found ‘DC’s kryptonite– kicks to the former heavyweight champ’s rotund body, which really punished ‘DC’ and set-up ‘Bones’ knocking him out with a head kick.

And ‘Bones’ feels that the added pep in his kicks due to the increased mass would make his kicks to the body even more lethal, and make beating Cormier even easier. What do you think about Daniel Cormier’s reaction to Jon Jones claims about beating him at heavyweight?