Despite Jon Jones’ response, Daniel Cormier won’t take back his “bad employee” opinion of him.
A text-message exchange between UFC CEO Dana White and then-owner Lorenzo Fertitta from 2014 was included among unsealed documents in the ongoing UFC anti-trust lawsuit, revealing an aggressive attitude toward Jones during their contract dispute with the then-light heavyweight champion, which prompted Cormier to say “we’ve all had bad employees” in reference to Jones.
UFC heavyweight champion Jones (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) didn’t take too kindly to his former rival’s comment, reminding him of how their prior fights went.
“Never let a “bad employee” beat you up and take everything from you twice. It’ll leave you bitter for a really long time evidently.”
Never let a “bad employee” beat you up and take everything from you twice. It’ll leave you bitter for a really long time evidently
— BONY (@JonnyBones) January 18, 2024
Jones defeated Cormier twice in title fights. His knockout finish of Cormier in their 2017 rematch was overturned to a no contest after Jones tested positive for a turinabol metabolite.
Cormier is bothered that Jones only focuses on the negative things that he says.
“If I could say 100 things about him positively, he hangs onto the negative thing,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “But I wasn’t talking about him directly. I was talking about in business and you have employees in your businesses, sometimes things go sideways with the employees and you say bad things. When someone is being a bad employee, you say bad things.”
However, Cormier doubled down on his prior comments.
“Even if he won both fights, it doesn’t change what happened with the fight with Dan Henderson,” Cormier said. “It doesn’t change the stuff that happened at UFC 200. It doesn’t change all those reasons why Dana went off. If my wrestling coach in my academy is late constantly or not showing up to work and I flip out on him, but then he ultimately takes the team to the tournament and they do really well, great. But it does not change the reasons I said the things that I said.”
Cormier concluded by insisting that he’s not bitter about never beating Jones, even though he thinks there’s an asterisk next to his name.
“I’m not bitter, guys. I am fine with everything,” Cormier said. “Sure, he won the fights, because I don’t think he’s the only person in my life who I’ve fought who was on steroids.”
Daniel Cormier doubles down on ‘bad employee’ comment after Jon Jones takes swipe at him