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Two-time UFC champion Daniel Cormier said he was not interested in a third fight against rival Jon Jones before his retirement.
Cormier, 39, who defeated Derrick Lewis on Saturday at UFC 230 to retain his UFC heavyweight title, said he planned to end his career at age 40 and hope his latest Opponent would be the former heavyweight of the UFC and the current WWE Universal Champion, Brock Lesnar.
"I do not need it [the Jones fight] more, "Cormier said on Ariel Helwani's Monday MMA Show. Sometimes you need things and sometimes you do not have them. … I came to accept everything. As he was so gone, I had to pull out of the situation so completely that it was almost not a reality. "
Cormier and Jones shared one of the most vivid rivalries in the history of MMA. Jones defeated Cormier twice (one of them was subsequently replaced by a non-contest), which included a unanimous decision in their initial fight against UFC 182 in 2015.
Jones was then stripped of his lightweight light heavyweight title after being arrested following a gambling accident involving a pregnant woman, Cormier beating Anthony Johnson for the interim title. The former wrestling star in the state of Oklahoma also beat Stipe Miocic to win the UFC heavyweight championship in July.
Jones and Cormier were originally scheduled to dispute the UFC 200 in July 2016, but Jones failed a pre-test drug test and was removed from the card a few days before the event, after being replaced by Anderson Silva, whom Cormier defeated.
The two men finally clashed in a rematch against UFC 214 in July 2017, which allowed Jones to win in front of TKO after a whim in the third round. However, the fight was later deemed hopeless after Jones had a positive result for Turinabol, an anabolic steroid.
Last month, Jones also told Helwani that he was not interested in another rematch with Cormier.
"I already have all the balls when it's Daniel Cormier," Jones said. "I've beaten it twice.This game has never been personal.What is personal, is to look for greatness, not individuals.So, in the case of Daniel Cormier and of myself he has to fight once again if he wishes to be considered one of the greatest of all time.I do not need to fight him again to be considered one of the greatest of all time.I still have many years to prove it. "
Jones faces Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 232 on Dec. 29 in Las Vegas. The fight is a rematch of a previous fight in which Jones had won a unanimous decision to retain his heavyweight title.
Cormier, who claimed to be in the discussion for the best fighter of all time, lost only a professional fight, but believes Jones used banned substances to win his initial fight.
"Can I really believe that he will be back in the game?" Cormier asked. "History shows that there will probably be a problem before Gustafsson's fight or after Gustafsson's fight, we're planning a fight, there's definitely going to be a problem, because there've always been some." "
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