With Jon Jones on his way back, Daniel Cormier tries to sharpen a champion’s mettle

Daniel Cormier reeled off the list of fighters he has either beaten or taken on: Anthony Johnson, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, Josh Barnett, Dan Henderson and Jon Jones.

Now, with former Ultimate Fighting Championship light-heavyweight title challenger Alexander Gustafsson getting his second shot at a belt Saturday in Houston versus Cormier, the champion said those past battles provide valued institutional memory in his first title defense.

“Experience at a high level is going to come into play. I can rely on that,” Cormier said Monday in an interview with reporters in downtown Los Angeles. “I have to rely on that, especially those five-round fights. This is my sixth time training for a five-round fight.”

Gustafsson (16-3) pointed to Cormier’s experience -- not the wrestling skills he boasts as a two-time Olympian -- as the champion’s No. 1 asset.

UFC statistics show Cormier (16-1) subjects foes to 58% of the punches he’s thrown either in a clinch or on the ground while revealing he takes only 1.71 significant strikes per minute, 40% less than the UFC average.

Cormier won the belt in May by beating hard-hitting Johnson, replacing stripped champion Jones in the bout after Jones had dealt Cormier his only loss in January, by unanimous decision.

Jones’ belt was taken away after he was involved in an April car crash in New Mexico and fled the scene. On Tuesday, a New Mexico judge accepted Jones’ felony plea and sentenced him to 18 months of supervised probation with no jail time.

“Obviously, if I get past Gustafsson and Jones is available, that’s the fight,” Cormier said before Jones’ news broke. “Jones is a very good athlete. He moves well. Has good balance. Understands wrestling positions. I don’t anticipate Alex being able to move like Jones. If I never got to right [that] wrong, it would be difficult. As a competitor, that’s something I want to fix.”

But first there’s Gustafsson, who gave Jones his most difficult test yet, in 2013, but was then stunned in a January first-round knockout loss to Johnson in Gustafsson’s homeland of Sweden.

“The guy just lost in two-and-a-half minutes, so why ... build him up if you think his confidence is already low?” Cormier asked. “Why should I rebuild it for him? I want him to have these big questions overhead.

“He’s very dangerous, a real threat. If I don’t fight my best, I could lose to him, but I think I’ve covered all my bases.”

Cormier said he respects Gustafsson’s wrestling and power punching, specifically his right uppercut.

“Being that I fought Jones for 25 minutes, I’ve felt the big, long guy,” Cormier said. “I’m going to land punches on him, make him uncomfortable.”

Despite sentiment that Cormier is merely keeping the belt in play until Jones can fight again, the 36-year-old said he has found time to appreciate his journey, doing so while taking family pictures recently.

“I’m happy, my kids are healthy, I’ve won the title. If this was my very last fight, I’d be good. But it won’t be. I’ll fight again,” Cormier said. “You can’t satisfy everyone. You do as good as you can. There will be people who just don’t like you. It’s about defending the championship, winning in a competitive environment.”

Anyway, Jones, who tested positive for cocaine in a December test looking for performance-enhancing drugs and was still cleared to fight Cormier after they had previously brawled at a press event, appeared as if he needed a time-out, so to speak.

“Seems as though he’s doing the right things, distancing himself from everything, working on himself, which is most important,” Cormier said of Jones. “He’s so good and you wonder when he’s coming back to fight, but in reality this dude is doing what he needs to as a human being. That’s what we should care about first. When he comes back ... that’s not the issue.

“I can’t stop people from saying my belt’s not real. I went into the octagon against Anthony Johnson and beat him, and that’s not easy to do ... in three weeks, fight the toughest, hardest-punching striker in the division. Nothing was handed to me.”

The good feelings remained through this week.

“I’m fit, ready to go. I’m going to win. I’m not going anywhere,” Cormier said. “Seeing what we’ve accomplished, we’ve done good. A lot of people can’t take it in. A kid from Lafayette, La., look at this,” he said, nodding to a group of photographers and reporters. “This is the [stuff] we saw in ‘Rocky.’”

UFC 192 also includes a welterweight fight pitting former champion Johny Hendricks versus Tyron Woodley, top-five light-heavyweights Ryan Bader and Rashad Evans meeting in a bout that could net the winner a title shot, and a women’s bantamweight fight between Jessice Eye and Julianna Pena.

Twitter: @latimespugmire

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