Midnight Mania! Sonnen: Jones Is Using Loophole, Not Snitching

Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Chael Sonnen is known for saying a lot of things, and he’s got a mouthful to say about Jon Jones, steroid use, and the infamous snitching clause Jones took advantage of. Transcript via BloodyElbow.com:

“If anyone ever gets flagged on one of these tests, in the eyes of the media, he was always taking steroids — illegal steroids. In some cases that’s true. In this case, that would be true,”

“Jon was working the story of ‘I have no idea. I didn’t take anything and I have no idea where this came from,’ and he was sticking to that. He was even ‘hey I’ll take a lie detector test, I’ll cough up some tears for you guys. I’ve never even heard of this stuff before.’ Well, he was telling the truth.

“All of that was true. He was taking a different banned substance that was contaminated with this banned substance,” Sonnen claimed. “So when this one came out, he’s sitting there with his pants down, ‘oh man I’ve never even heard of that. I feel like I’m being victimized. I never took that.’ — he was telling the truth, intent-wise.

“I could get more into detail. I could tell you specifically what he was doing and how he was doing it, but the point is, it was contaminated with this, and it’s not the first time that has happened. Not even the first time at the gym he’s training at that that has happened.”

Sonnen has some legitimacy to his claims to being someone who knows about steroid use, as he himself admitted to using Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) during his own MMA career. However, though he believes Jones was doping, he doesn’t believe Jones was doping again. He buys the residual ‘pulsing’ story USADA and the UFC are pushing, though he thinks that just indicates Jones’ suspension wasn’t long enough.

“I am seeing Jon falsely disparaged for having retaken banned substances. That’s not true. The conclusion and the analysis is accurate that this is residue that is left over,” he said. “My conclusion and analysis that he was under-punished …. I’m just a guy looking at the rules that understands that on your second violation, you have a minimum of two years. Had they gone through that, we wouldn’t be in this spot (because there would no longer be turinabol residue in his system).

He also doesn’t think Jones has information to help USADA with their investigations, that he’s just taking advantage of the clause to shorten his sentence.

“It’s a matter of how far are people willing to dig — maybe they’re not, maybe they’re willing to let it go away — all the way to Jon Jones being a rat. Taking a clause to help out, turned out not to be true,” Sonnen claimed. “He took the deal. He had no information. He’s never going to obtain information. He was never meant to do that. That was absolutely meant to catch a loophole within the rules and get it applied.”

As USADA and Jones aren’t willing or able to release this information until the alleged investigation involving Jones’ substantial assistance concludes, Sonnen’s claim cannot be verified. Is he wildly off-base, or is he onto something? Jones was granted a one-fight license to compete by the Nevada State Athletic Commission today, despite their expressed reservations surrounding his situation.

---

Insomnia

This sheep (goat?) has been watching WEC Anthony Pettis highlights

I’ll believe it when I see it

The man, the myth, the legend, Picogram Jones gets off clean.

Matt Brown tells Mike Perry he doesn’t need to talk shit, Brown already wants to fight him.

Jon Jones was probably drafting a tweet about how blessed and not stressed he is.

Joe Rogan has the best faces

There were some high-quality memes about today’s NSAC hearing

This will now be my reply when one of you freaks out in the comments that I included something funny about Trump in Midnight Mania. Politics forever!

Dillon Danis recalling happy memories with Conor.

Who did this to Chuck Liddell? They are going to hell.

This is kinda weird. Maybe these athletes were difficult to access during that time, but it sure seems like a notable oversight

Renato Moicano is a beast

---

Random Land

Coworkers at my day job showed me this, and it’s just funny

This is cool- the original Jon Jones comes through again

Sleep well, Maniacs! A better tomorrow is always possible. Follow me on Twitter and Facebook @Vorpality