Daniel Cormier has heard Jon Jones' name enough in the lead up to arguably the biggest fight of his career.

As Cormier prepares to face heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic next weekend at UFC 226 in Las Vegas, he's been embroiled in a back and forth with his most heated rival over the past week.

It all started thanks to an innocent social media post asking of Cormier would be considered the greatest of all time if he beat Miocic and became a simultaneous two-division champion at both light heavyweight and heavyweight. That resulted in a string of messages from Jones before the discussion got so nasty that he ended up mentioning Cormier's wife during one of the exchanges.

Cormier fired back with an equally ugly message as the never ending war of words continued with Jones.

On Thursday, Cormier responded to those comments by saying he wasn't all that surprised that Jones decided to bring in his family during their verbal sparring session because it wasn't the first time he's taken a very personal shot at him during their rivalry.

"It's kind of what he does," Cormier told FloCombat during the UFC 226 media conference call. "Before our very first fight, there were some direct messages sent [on Twitter] and he said he was my daddy or some s--t like that right. Somebody told him something in reference to my father being murdered so he had Dana [White] call me on three-way to apologize for saying anything like 'I'm your daddy' or something like that. But every time we start to argue, he goes back to 'I'm your daddy'. So it's like he didn't mean to apologize.

"So there's deeper meaning when he says 'Who's your daddy?'. There's deeper meaning because the history and him going through that unnecessary step of having Dana call me with him on the phone so that he can personally apologize for saying anything about my father when he just kind of goes back to it any time we start to argue... Look, the guy's not a good guy and why would a scumbag like that have any limits?"

Due in large part to the disdain they share for each other, Cormier has come to understand that he's probably never going to escape questions about that subject even when he's days away from facing the longest reigning heavyweight champion in UFC history.

He does believe, however, that Jones is very calculated by putting his name back into the spotlight right now as Cormier is about to do something he's never done.

"I think at this point when a guy has been as inactive as Jones he ties himself to certain individuals to keep himself relevant," Cormier said. "It's easy to talk trash to me because people will always ask me questions. We're getting on the conference call for Stipe and I's fight next week and the first question's about Jon Jones. So then I answer the question and then he obviously sees my answer to the question and then it gives him an opportunity to kind of get himself back into relevancy when he isn't."

At the same time, Cormier can't get all that upset that Jones is always a topic of conversation because the two fighters have been attached to each other so often over he past few years while reigning a top the light heavyweight division.

Still, Cormier is more exciting than ever before to face somebody he truly respects like Miocic versus the anger and rage that seethes inside of him every time he's standing in front of Jones.

"I think it's part of my story. Regardless of what I do, it will always be a part of my story," Cormier said addressing Jones. "You said something earlier about Stipe Miocic — I know he won't test positive for anything. There will be no sex pill excuse. There will be no excuses. This guy is going to come and he's going to fight clean, he's going to fight hard. That's where I want my focus to be.

"I don't want to worry about a guy that is notorious for trying to screw me, himself, his family and everybody else. You guys can worry about him. It's crazy that a person that is so self-destructive can be held in such high regard in this sport. It's sad."