Daniel Cormier doesn’t think Jon Jones can formulate such a strong opinion of Tom Aspinall after UFC 321.
Jones jumped at the opportunity to mock Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) after an eye poke rendered him unable to continue in his heavyweight title defense against Ciryl Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) last month in Abu Dhabi. Jones called Aspinall overrated and a quitter.
While Gane had his moments, Cormier thinks Jones is being too harsh on Aspinall’s performance.
“When Jon Jones is getting called a duck, when Jon Jones is getting told that Tom Aspinall is the guy that’s going to beat him, he’s sitting back hoping that something happens to give him a reason to go and downplay that,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “We spoke about it prior to the fight – I told you guys that if Ciryl Gane won, Jon would constantly go, ‘That’s the guy you thought was going to beat me?’ I don’t know that that finish isn’t more satisfying to a guy like Jones, because now he can almost guess what would have happened, even if that might not be true.
“Make no mistake about it, Ciryl Gane was finding a lot of success in Round 1, more than many people thought that he was going to. But Ciryl could have either continued to build, or Tom could have completely settled himself and turned that around. Guys, that was a four-minute round of a fight. They did not fight a long fight to really form an opinion. You couldn’t really form an opinion as strongly as so many have. I think the reason they’ve formed an opinion in the strong way that they did is because they’ve never seen Tom struggle at all.”
Although Cormier understands why Jones reveled in watching Aspinall face some adversity, he doesn’t agree.
“Maybe Tom Aspinall isn’t what Jon built him up to be in his mind prior to that fight, but I don’t know that we saw enough to form an opinion of his overall game in four minutes,” Cormier said. “It’s just the truth. … Is Jon Jones being a little bit too harsh? Can we really form that strong an opinion based on four minutes? Does Tom Aspinall not deserve a little grace? And are we reacting only in this way because we’ve never seen him struggle at all?
“And also, how much can you struggle in four minutes? He had a bloody nose, and I think because he had that bloody nose, it made people feel, ‘Oh my god, this dude’s in trouble.’ Again, still 21 minutes left in the fight. I watched Khabib Nurmagomedov lose a round to Justin Gaethje, and ended up submitting him afterward and overtaking the fight. A lot can change between Minute 4 and Minute 7, 9, 15, 21, all the way to 25.”
