The rematch is set… again

If the past two years have taught us anything it is that nobody should get their hopes up about the highly anticipated rematch between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier. The blood feud between the two top light heavyweights reached a new level of intrigue when Jones after Jones was stripped of the title and Cormier proclaimed himself as the real champion after beating Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson back in May 2015.

Cormier has successfully defended his title twice since winning and had four straight victories, but all coming after a lopsided unanimous decision loss to Jones when they first fought for the title.

The reversed roles of champion and challenger have only made the rematch more intriguing, and the words spouted off by both fighters have only built more animosity and hatred between the two.

Cormier and Jones are set to fight for the second time on July 29 in Anaheim, California in the main event of UFC 214. That card may replace the post 4th of July card as the summer’s grandest event for the sport. If they actually fight that is.

We’ve been down this road before. This is the third time this rematch has been scheduled, but and injury forced Cormier to pull out once and another suspension led to Jones being pulled off the card the second time.

So maybe the rematch will finally happen, but as Cormier said before after learning the scheduled UFC 200 fight was canceled, you can’t invest yourself emotionally in this fight and leave yourself open to a huge letdown when it does not happen. But if it does happen, it’s about time. It’s needed to happen and with the rest of the 205 division cleaning itself out the way it has – with Johnson knocking out all the other top-ranked fighters and then losing twice to Cormier – there is no other fight that can make sense.

Jimi Manuwa called for a title shot, but nothing about his resume looks even remotely championship fight worthy. Johnson lost twice and now retired, Gustafsson lost his title opportunity and Glover Teixeira was quickly knocked out by Johnson. Manuwa was also knocked out by both Johnson and Gustafsson, the only two men Cormier has beaten with the title on the line.

The reason the UFC is pushing for Jones to come back is because there are no other light heavyweights worthy of a title shot. It’s Cormier and Jones and everybody else, so as long as a rematch is possible, they should continue to push to make that fight happen. But until it actually happens, there is no point banking on it.

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Corey Johns

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You could say Corey was born to become a sports journalist. His father won a national championship coaching college soccer. His mother is a baseball fanatic who hasn't missed seeing an Orioles game since 1983 (literally, sometimes it's annoying). His great uncle was a big-time boxing promoter and his maternal grandfather was once a department head at the Baltimore Sun. Basically, sports and journalism run through his blood. He played just about every little league sports there was when he was a kid and was a multi-sport athlete in high school; even playing in the first-ever high school sanction Rugby game in the country. Eventually he retired from sports as an undefeated Maryland state Rugby champion as a high school senior. Perhaps lack of athletic talent has more to do with the retirement, but he will tell you that it more had to do with a great desire to jump right into media. Upon his graduation from University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a triple communications major, Corey started the So Much Sports network and has continued to grow his websites and continues to work to make them premier sports media outlets.

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