UFC 226: Daniel Cormier wants to end MMA career with Jon Jones, Brock Lesnar fights

Current Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight champion, Daniel Cormier, has already confirmed he will retire from mixed martial arts (MMA) in early 2019. Before then, however, “DC” will look to make history by becoming only the second fighter to hold two division titles simultaneously when he takes on Heavyweight kingpin, Stipe Miocic, at UFC 226 on July 7, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. After that, Cormier already has his bucket list for his final two fights.

Speaking on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show, “DC” broke down his wish list, saying he’d love to get a trilogy fight against Jon Jones and then a big-money showdown against former Heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar. In an attempt to make those bouts a reality before he hangs up his gloves for good, Cormier hopes to return to action in November win, lose or draw against Miocic.

After that, he hopes to end his career in February or March of 2019.

“I think I can get two more, I can squeeze a couple more in,” Cormier explained. “If I fight July 7th, I bet I can get one around November and then take a month off in December, and I can squeeze one in in the beginning of March. I can still fight,” he said (transcribed by ESPN).

“I beat Stipe Miocic, and this all depends on UFC -- and Alexander Gustafsson may hate to hear this -- but I’d like to at some point fight Jones again and fight Brock Lesnar. Those are the two ideal end fights, but things don’t always work out perfect. But, I feel like that would be perfect. There’s going to be a few guys pissed off about it, but oh well, they can enjoy fighting each other.

“These are just the two biggest fights that I could possibly have and nothing more,” Cormier added. “The Jones fight, that story writes itself. Brock Lesnar is just a chance to fight a guy that is a massive name. I think it would be a good fight to go out with.”

Nothing wrong with getting the most bang for your buck before riding off into the sunset.

Of course, getting Lesnar and Jones on board is a whole different struggle as “Bones” is still waiting to hear from United Stated Anti Doping Agency (USADA) following his second failed drug test. Furthermore, Lesnar is still handling business over at WWE, but he does have the option to come back to the Octagon. In an interesting twist, UFC President Dana White recently revealed his plans to book a mega-fight between Jones and Lesnar, which could set up some interesting title fights in the future with the three men.

Of course, Stipe could pretty much put a kibosh on most of those scenarios if he collects his fourth straight title defense at UFC 226 in less than a fortnight.