Cormier Says It Was UFC’s Decision To Pull Him Out Of Jones Rematch At UFC 197

According to UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier, it was the UFC who made the call to pull him from the main event against Jon Jones at UFC 197 later this month, not him.

Cormier spoke about the unfortunate circumstances that led to him pulling out of UFC 197 this past weekend, resulting in Jones vs. Ovince St. Preux in an interim title fight being named the new main event of this month’s UFC pay-per-view event, during his appearance on Ariel Helwani’s “The MMA Hour” at MMAFighting.com on Monday.

According to D.C., however, he wanted to wait until Monday to see how his injury was doing before making the call, but the UFC told him that they didn’t want him to fight such a big fight when he wasn’t at his best.

“Something very surprising happened,” Cormier said during his appearance on the show on Monday. “Jon and I will make a lot of money together, we make a lot of money for the UFC too. But when I told them I was going to see it through the weekend, those guys were [like], ‘Daniel you’re hurt. Looking at your MRI, you need 5-6 weeks, so even if sat on your ass for the next three weeks before they fight, you’d still need at least two weeks to start feeling better. And they’re like, ‘You know D.C., you worked very hard to get to where you are today. You’re the champion, you don’t have to fight hurt. We can’t put you in situation you’re not healthy, we don’t want you to fight under those circumstances. They made the decision for me. I begged them, I was like give me until Monday, please.”

While Cormier won’t be able to fight Jones on April 23rd as he had originally planned, he still hopes the fight can materialize in time for UFC 200, or another UFC event this summer.

“If they’re telling me in 4-6 weeks I’m supposed to be better, that would leave me with 10-12 weeks to train for UFC 200, I could be ready to fight then,” said Cormier. “The only thing with that is, it’s a little scary because Jon is fighting in April. I don’t know if he will be willing to turn around and fight right back again three months later. If he would, I’d love to run it back with him any time in the summer. Late summer, early summer, it doesn’t matter.”

UFC 197: Jones vs. St.. Preux takes place on Saturday, April 23, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada.