Daniel Cormier will have to wait longer before getting a shot at Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion Jon Jones as UFC announced the postponement of their scheduled title showdown.
The Jones-Cormier showdown, which was originally scheduled at UFC 178 on Sept. 27, will now take place at UFC 182 on Jan. 3 after "Bones" sustained an injury during his training camp.
According to MMA Fighting, the reigning pound-for-pound king sustained a torn meniscus in his knee and a sprained ankle during a wrestling practice on Monday. The extent of the injury is still unknown, but sources said that Jones will not need to undergo surgery.
Cormier expressed frustration over the postponement of the fight and said that Jones should have decided to go on with the fight like him when he accepted the fight despite being diagnosed with a partially torn ACL.
"If I can go in there with a partially torn ACL, I think he should have fought; tough it up and fight," Cormiersaid in an interview with MMA Junkie. "I don't know the extent of his injuries, and if it's really bad, I'll take it back. But on the surface, I heard he hurt himself. But people hear ACL, they think you're out for a year. I've been hurt, and I've been training. I wish he would have just fought."
The 35-year-old American MMA icon, who holds a perfect 15-0 record, was supposed to go under the knife before accepting a fight against Jones, who was originally scheduled to face Alexander Gustafsson in a rematch.
Cormier said that he is disappointed, but has no choice other than keeping himself healthy and ready for arguably the biggest fight of his career.
"Now I re-shift, I refocus, and I focus on the task at hand, which is fighting Jon Jones," Cormier said. "It's disappointing, but I'm a person that likes to look at the positive, and the positive is that I have a full training camp to get myself and my team together to get ready for a big fight like this."
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