Dana White Wants Cormier-Jones 3 Despite Cormier's Team's Retirement Push

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UFC President Dana White is hoping to see a third fight between Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones, though the possibility remains Cormier could simply retire.

"I'd obviously like to see Jones and Cormier fight again at heavyweight," White told TMZ Sports. "Cormier's team wants him to retire now. They want him to retire right now. I hope we can get three more fights out of him."

Cormier, 39, has indicated in the past he intends to retire when he turns 40 in March and that any rematch with Jones would have to come before then. He also said two weeks ago he doesn't feel a need to face Jones again before he retires, instead saying he wants to close his career by facing the WWE's Brock Lesnar.

"I don't need [the Jones fight] anymore," he said on Ariel Helwani's MMA Show (h/t Greg Rosenstein of ESPN.com). "Sometimes you need things and sometimes you don't. ... I've come to terms with everything. Because he was gone so much, I had to remove myself from the situation so completely that it almost became not reality."

White told TMZ Sports, however, he doesn't know if a fight against Lesnar is in the cards. 

As for Jones and Cormier, Jones won both fights in the matchup, though his second victory was overturned after he tested positive for turinabol. Given his two victories, Jones said he wasn't interested in a rematch, per Rosenstein:

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"I already have all the marbles when it comes to Daniel Cormier. I've beaten him twice. This game has never been personal. What is personal to me is chasing greatness, not individuals. So in the case of myself and Daniel Cormier, he needs to fight myself one more time if he ever wants to be considered one of the all-time greats. I don't need to fight him again to be considered one of the all-time greats. I have many more years to prove it."

Jones is set to next fight Alexander Gustafsson on Dec. 29, though Cormier suspects that Jones, who has had numerous issues outside of the Octagon in his career, won't be able to change his stripes.

"Can I really trust that he's going to be back in the game?" Cormier said. "History shows that there will probably be some sort of issue either before the Gustafsson fight or after the Gustafsson fight. We schedule a fight? There's definitely going to be an issue because there's always been an issue."