At UFC 165 last September, Alexander Gustafsson took Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones into deep waters, forcing the champ to go a full 25 minutes inside the cage and leaving him looking worse for wear.
As a result, "Bones" was forced to take a trip to the hospital, as did "The Mauler."
And at UFC 178 on Sept. 27, 2014, Daniel Cormier hopes that Jones can do to him what Gustafsson did, and that is become his first true test inside the eight-walled cage.
That's one of the reasons Cormier doesn't plan on knocking "Bones" out when they meet in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to his comments during a recent Q&A at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, California (video replay). In addition, "DC" wants to inflict as much pain as possible on his bitter rival.
There's always a method to the madness, as Cormier explains:
"I'm not going to knock him out. He has to stay in there for 25 minutes and take his beating. He has to stay in there and take his beating, so I am not going to knock him out."
He continues in a much more serious mode:
"What I really want, honestly, because I've been doing this for a while now, almost five years, I've beat every guy going away so far, that I want to be tested. At some point in my career, I want to be tested. I hope Jon Jones can do that because no one has been able to test me and I would like to be tested in a fight and be in a real fight. I enjoyed watching him in the Gustafsson fight because it showed a lot about his heart and his determination and his will to be champion. I want a dogfight to be honest with you. I want to be bloodied and I want to be sore on Sunday. I'm tired of getting up on Sunday morning and traveling home carrying all of my luggage not feeling like I got into a fight. I want him to come into the cage and fight me. I have been waiting for so long for the man to be my equal for so long, please be that guy, Jon Jones."
During his five years competing in mixed martial arts (MMA), "DC" has yet to be in any kind of trouble, as he has pretty much had his way with all of his previous 15 opponents on his way to a perfect record (15-0, 4-0 UFC).
This, despite the fact that Cormier has taken on some of the best the sport has ever seen including Dan Henderson, Roy Nelson, Frank Mir, Antonio Silva, and Josh Barnett. While he did go the distance with three of those men, "DC" says he has yet to feel like he's been in a fight.
Jones, a man who knows a thing or two about dominating fights, may very well give Daniel what he's looking for.
As for the mood during the second stop of their media tour, it was drastically different from that of Monday's in "Sin City," which saw the two men engage in fisticuffs after they got too close for comfort during their first-ever staredown.
See the wild video brawl here.
In fact, it was the complete opposite in "The City of Angels," as the two men were actually throwing verbal insults at one another, but in a rather mild, playful manner. Something I'm sure UFC President Dana White would rather see any day of the week.
Though Jones did reveal there was extra security, which included some of L.A.'s finest, on scene just in case another melee popped off.