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Cape Town - In ten days Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier will finally settle their long and highly publicized rivalry.
Cormier will defend his UFC light heavyweight championship against the only man to have beaten him in professional mixed martial arts and Jon Jones knows having that W over him means all the pressure falls onto Cormier's shoulders.
"I think DC has a lot of pressure on him," Jones said during a media day on Tuesday.
"After I win this second fight, he's over. He's really over. He's done a great job of doing commentary work, but it will be a major blow to his legacy to lose again."
"I just think the pressure's on for him," Jones said.
"It really is a make-or-break situation for him. I enjoy being in the position that I am, I feel there's a lot less pressure on me. I'm 28 years old and I have a long time to fight, where he's in a position where if he loses this one, he never really was the champion, and I think he knows that."
Prior to the first meeting between the two, Cormier had been a tear of both the heavyweight and light heavyweight division racking up wins over Frank Mir, Roy Nelson, Patrick Cummings and Dan Henderson, but Jones beat Cormier via unanimous decision at UFC 182. Cormier would later win the vacant belt against Anthony Johnson after Jones was suspended and stripped of his title.
While a loan loss to a single opponent is hard to grasp a second loss to the very same opponent would be devastating to a mindset and with that being said Jones believes DC will be thinking about that and will look to exploit it on July 9.
"I think he tries to paint the picture of, it's me and him and the rest of the division, but that's not the way No. 1 works," Jones said.
"There's only one top dog and then there's the rest of the division. I'm excited to go out there and prove that this is my time and my era. I don't want to share this time with anyone."
