CHICAGO – Sorry, UFC analysts and online pundits. If it’s a certain middleweight’s skin you’re trying to get under, you can transfer to Washington. Transfer to Jefferson. Jared Cannonier isn’t playing your reindeer games anymore.
Cannonier (18-8 MMA, 11-8 UFC), a former UFC title challenger, meets former Bellator standout Michael Page (23-3 MMA, 2-1 UFC) on Saturday at UFC 319. Page will be a small betting favorite in the fight, but his relative newness to the UFC has analysts like Joe Rogan talking more about him than when he was with the competition.
And because of that, “MVP” is having labels attached to him like the game’s trickiest puzzle to solve.
Honestly, it sounds like Cannonier is over it. Very over it.
“Everyone wants the ‘-est’ at the end of something – and if they ain’t going for that, they want to be a ‘GOAT,'” Cannonier told MMA Junkie and other reporters Wednesday at media day for UFC 319 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+), which takes place at United Center, where Cannonier and Page will be part of the main card.
“I really don’t want to get into that pissing contest: ‘Who’s the biggest? Who’s the bestest? Who’s the baddest?’ That’s for everybody else to determine. I don’t even want to go into that conversation. I feel like I would have to lessen myself to even think in that regard. So next question.”
Once they do inevitably throw some label out, like Rogan did, that means Cannonier is inevitably going to get asked about it.
And that part, he’s really over, as well as being underestimated by oddsmakers and bettors. He hasn’t been really and truly favored since a knockout of Derek Brunson more than three years ago.
“If I wanted to let (people underestimating me) motivate me, I could, ‘You see what they’re saying about me? I’m gonna kick their ass!’ You see how stupid I look saying that sh*t?” Cannonier said
“I’m a grown-ass man. I’m 41 years old. I don’t play games. I don’t join in any of the reindeer games. That’s what I see. When I watch TV, those are reindeer games going on (with trash talking and online analysts). You guys ask me some of these questions about the reindeer games, I feel like I’ve got to lower my brain, lessen my thinking ability, become smaller – lessen how I even see myself to think like that and answer your questions.”
Cannonier got back in the win column in February with a main event knockout of Gregory Rodrigues in the fourth round. The finish was his first in three years and got him a second straight post-fight bonus award. Prior to that, as part of a two-fight skid, he dropped a Fight of the Night bout to Caio Borralho.
Check out Cannonier’s full media day interview above.
