A crestfallen Daniel Cormier has reacted to the collapse of his UFC 200 main-event fight with Jon Jones at a hastily-arranged press conference.
‘Bones’ was pulled from the event on Saturday, just three days out from his fight for the undisputed light heavyweight championship, after he received USADA anti-doping violation on Wednesday.
Cormier was asked to describe his emotions. “Very disappointed,” he said. “I worked really hard to prepare for this. You know, you take care of what you can take care of and that’s what I did. More than anything, just very disappointed.
“I put myself in a position where I felt I could win this fight. To hear something like this is very sad. From a competitive standpoint and from a financial standpoint – there are a number of ways in which this is disappointing. I really don’t know exactly how to explain how I’m feeling right now.”
The three-round fight between Mark Hunt and Brock Lesnar will now headline the show. No replacement opponent has been found for Cormier, but the 205lb champion was open to the idea of fighting.
“I’ve trained hard and long – if anybody will fight, I will fight,” he said. “Why not? But I understand the difficult task of getting someone to fight me in two days. Obviously, you know, I’m willing to fight up, put up some weight… 225, 220, I’ll fight, it doesn’t matter. I just can’t fight a really big guy right now because I’ve been kind of shrinking my body in order to make 205.
“If it doesn’t make sense for the organization or for me, then it doesn’t make sense. We’ have always been in tune – me and the UFC – and we made these decisions together. And I’m assuming that’s what we’ll do this time. But if the bosses say it doesn’t make sense, then it doesn’t make sense, I won’t do it.”
UFC 200 is set to take place on Saturday, July 9th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
