UFC 214 goes down tomorrow night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California with the main event being the second showdown between UFC Light Heavyweight Daniel Cormier and the only man to defeat him, Jon Jones. It’s one of the biggest mixed martial arts fight of the year, and it actually has a backstory that is more interesting than most video games.
Jon Jones is a prodigy. The athletically gifted fighter became a champion at the age of 23, and was largely considered to be untouchable. Even when he was doing coke (despite trying to portray a squeaky clean public image) and partying during training camp, he was able to clearly win fights. Hell, he even put on a Fight of the Year candidate against Alexander Gustafsson that led to the duo being on the cover of the first EA Sports UFC game. He also soundly defeated Daniel Cormier, and to quote the man himself he “had two great weekends. Back-to-back weekends. Cocaine one, [Cormier’s] ass the next. It was great. That’s a month for the ages.”
Then came the issues. Jon Jones tested positive for cocaine. He had a car accident with a pregnant woman and fled the scene of the crime (only to come back to recover some weed). He was stripped of the title, and ended up failing another drug test (that I’m not even going to get into) in the lead up to UFC 200, the milestone event where the Cormier vs. Jones rematch was supposed to happen.
Despite all this, Jones is roundly the more liked fighter between the two. It’s not that Cormier is a bad guy, in fact he’s one of the most genuine and nice people in a sport that is about twisting limbs and smashing faces. Cormier is a man with a life story that would make one hell of a movie. He had to watch his father get killed in front of his eyes during Thanksgiving. Cormier is a dedicated athlete that worked his way all the way to the Olympics, where he served as the American wrestling captain, yet couldn’t compete due to a kidney failure. Unimaginably his pain didn’t stop there, as he also lost his infant daughter.
Cormier is a guy who somehow still has a positive output and is able to perform at a high level despite going through several lifetimes of pain. He should be cheered, but no. Instead he’s absolutely despised by the mixed martial arts fans while Jones is cheered despite being a bigger real-life villain than Sephiroth. Life isn’t fair, and sadly Daniel Cormier knows that fact all too well.
Anyhow, the EA Sports Twitter posted footage of the fight simulated in EA Sports UFC 2, and Jones won via knockout. The villain is probably going to win, and it’ll just further cement 2017 as the absolute worst.
#UFC214 Simulation: @dc_mma vs. @JonnyBones pic.twitter.com/CQzsAy8moi
— EA SPORTS (@EASPORTS) July 29, 2017
Mixed martial arts is great, though.
For more on UFC 214, check out Crave’s very own Sherdog.com‘s coverage of the event. Their audio roundtable for the pay-per-view event is a must-listen if you’re a fan of mixed martial arts.
