Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and former middleweight title holder Anderson Silva are two fighters often considered within the conversation for greatest fighters of all time. That being said, reigning UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier feels differently.
Anderson Silva and Jon Jones have both failed multiple drug tests during their mixed martial arts career, perhaps tainting their legacies within the sport. Speaking on a UFC 226 media conference call, Daniel Cormier offered his thoughts on the matter.
“Any time a guy does performance enhancing drugs and on multiple occasions, they eliminate themselves. So for as great as Anderson Silva was, he tested positive I think two times. Jones has tested positive two or three times. Those guys eliminate themselves.”
“When you start getting performance enhancers tied to your name, there’s no way around that. There’s no way around it, and I think that of all the sports, the people that pay the harshest price are the baseball players. Because when you have negatives tied to your name, they deny you the ultimate vindication. The ultimate goal of a baseball player is to go to the Hall of Fame and these guys aren’t even getting close.
“The Mark McGwire’s, the Sammy Sosa’s, the Barry Bonds — those guys aren’t getting close because they have those bad things tied to their names. As a sport, I think MMA needs to evolve to the point that the punishment for having doing those things is your place within the sport should be challenged and should be questioned.”
Cormier does, however, believe he deserves a mention among the MMA greats.
“I think I am. I don’t believe that anything else should be thought of. I should be in the conversation.”
“I want to be mentioned among the greats. The Georges St-Pierres and the Demetrious Johnsons, the guys that have done things the correct way over the course of their entire careers without that asterisk.”
