Daniel Cormier thinks Alex Pereira vs. Jon Jones was the perfect fight for the UFC White House event.
UFC light heavyweight champion Pereira (13-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC) recently announced that him competing at the White House event on June 14 is a no-go, but didn’t specify why.
Pereira was angling to fight former UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones (28-1 MMA, 22-1 UFC), who heavily campaigned to be on the White House card himself. Cormier is disappointed to hear the news – despite Dana White already saying he doesn’t trust Jones after he vacated his belt and hung up his gloves, then came out of retirement just two weeks later.
“I truly believe that the most discouraging news would be Alex Pereira saying that he’s not going to fight at the White House,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “Pereira, obviously, is one of the biggest stars in the UFC, but also because, when he fights, in most cases, you know that there’s going to be fireworks, most likely, or possibly a finish. What’s most discouraging though about the whole situation – outside of the finishing facts, the star ability, all of that, is that if he was to fight, the fight that he offered up for the White House was a fight against Jon Jones.
“To which Jon Jones replied, ‘I would love to do that. Please let me on the White House. I’m back in the testing pool, I would want to fight Alex Pereira.’ So, now, you immediately have the American star in Jones, vs. the big star in Pereira. … Him saying that he’s not on the card, I wonder if someone told him that that’s not what they’re doing because I don’t know why else he would make it public. Jon Jones feels that if Pereira’s not fighting, he’s not fighting because I think that they know they both need each other to place themselves on that White House card, which is going to be an amazing event.”
With only one current American UFC champion in Kayla Harrison, Cormier says the White House event needs Jones.
“I believe that doing Jones vs. Pereira, that’s low-hanging fruit,” Cormier said. “You already got two guys that say, ‘We want to do that.’ Put them out there. It also tries to save you from trying to find an American guy who could either headline or can be close enough to the top of the card that it feels like the card is based around him.”
