UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones and Anthony Smith are set to headline UFC 235 next Saturday Night.
Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion and current UFC Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier is picking Jones to achieve victory at UFC 235.
“Anthony Smith is a great guy but being a great guy doesn’t win you fights,” Cormier told MMA Weekly. “I think he loses to Jones. He won that Volkan [Oezdemir] fight but to struggle that much, it’s very difficult for me because it’s going to make me say something that sounds negative about these guys but I’ve been in there with Volkan and I know that although he’s a good martial artist, there are just holes in the game that make the fight not that hard or as hard as some other fights are. He struggled mightily with the man and that was enough to tell me he was going to struggle when he got to the best light heavyweights and now he’s facing the best light heavyweight. I think he’s going to have a tough time.”
DC and Jones have fought each other twice before, with Jones winning at UFC 182 and a second Jones win at UFC 214 being overturned due to a failed drug test.
Cormer does predict that prospects Johnny Walker and Dominick Reyes have a shot to beat Jones in the future.
“The only person at the weight class to challenge him is me but there’s the young kid from Brazil [Johnny Walker], who over time could be tough,” he said. “Dominick Reyes, with time he’ll be real good.”
UFC 235 takes place on Saturday, March 2 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Jon Jones and Anthony Smith headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
