A brief scrum ensued with the two combatants having to be separated, and the fight was officially promoted. Jones curiously described the moment of doing the face-to-face on ESPN today as "intimate" and "passionate." That description caused a Dr. Spock like raise of my eyebrow as Cormier began to giggle.
(VIDEO OF JONES-CORMIER EXCHANGE YESTERDAY ON ESPN)
What's interesting is that Jones seems to be trying to get into Cormier's head, talking trash as we've never seen him. It's possible that Jones has taken notice of Cormier's resume. Big wins over bigger opponents. The portly former Olympian grabbed my attention when he squared off Antonia "Bigfoot" Silva in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. Silva, who seems much larger than the 6'4" he's listed at (same as Jones) towered over Cormier... and Cormier commenced to lay waste to Silva getting inside and ROCKING him with punches. The final result was a TKO victory for Cormier in route to winning the title.
(CLICK THE VIDEO BELOW TO SEE FINISH OF CORMIER vs. SILVA.)
But back to Jones. All of a sudden from his actions the other day, which he then followed up by goading Cormier into an exchange of barbs on Twitter, to that flight watch-list type beard of his he is attempting to intimidate or irritate Cormier. Think about it, the champion does not walk up to the challenger, it goes the other way around. Is it possible that Jones is the one feeling intimidation or worry at what happens on September 27, at UFC 178. Or... the whole thing could have been staged which makes today's blog worthless.
At any rate the shenanigans at the press conference was extremely reminiscent of when Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis turned their press conference into an appetizer for their fight. Thankfully Monday had no threats to by anyone to "f*** someone in the a** in front of everybody", etc. And back then, it was the challenger who started melees.
(CLICK THE VIDEO TO SEE FINISH OFF THE PRESS CONFERENCE WITH "FLAIR")
