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Daniel Cormier reacts to Jon Jones supposedly hiding under a cage to avoid drug testers.
During their seemingly never ending Twitter beef, Israel Adesanya managed to get Jon Jones to casually admit to one of the most infamous drug testing stories in mixed martial arts.
As the story goes, sometime around 2015, Jones was said to have avoided drug testers by hiding under the cage in the Jackson’s MMA gym. The long time UFC light heavyweight champion confirming this story took many by surprise, including his former rival in Daniel Cormier.
“I think it was before we fought the first time. I was like ‘wow, it was actually true!’ I heard it for years,” Cormier said on his ESPN podcast. “I didn’t use it (and bring it up during our fights) because I couldn’t prove that it was true.”
Jones had some minor details that he contested about the longstanding rumor though. He says he hid from the Nevada State Athletic Commission and not USADA, and claimed it was only because he “had just smoked a blunt” was was afraid to test positive for marijuana.
Based on Jones’ failed drug tests for performance enhancing drugs like turinabol, clomiphene, and letrozole, Cormier says he just doesn’t believe the marijuana excuse.
“The reality is, if it’s true, and with Jones’ history, if you believe that was marijuana, you’re as stupid as him,” he stated. “I mean you’re as dumb as him, because that’s the dumbest excuse. ‘I smoked, so that’s why’ C’mon man, that’s not true. I’m sorry, Jones. I’m not buying it.
“You were cheating. You were cheating just like all those other times,” Cormier said. “He got scared he hid underneath the octagon. Boy you got to have a criminal mindset to know that’s the place that they’re not gonna look.
“Can you imagine that? Under the octagon? How long? What’s under there? Think about that. Storage. Is it storage? Are there boxes under there? Is there a whole bunch of old equipment? Are there roaches? There’s roaches under there for sure. No light. And at what point do you feel safe to come out? Is there somebody calling him? Did he have his phone under there? Was he sitting with his legs crossed? Was he laying down? There were so many factors as to what he was doing under that octagon.”
Cormier says the admission paints a grim picture not just for Jones and his attempts to cheat drug tests, but the JacksonWink team who helped him as well.
“That should’ve been rock bottom. Honestly, like ‘man, I’m doing stuff so wrong that I’m hiding under an octagon from drug testers,’” Cormier continued. “The guy failed drug tests on multiple occasions after we fought, before we fought. I know that the guy does bad things, but to hear that was real? Yeah, it’s very disappointing. It sucks, because ultimately, like I’ve said a number of times, I don’t feel like the guy needed all that stuff in order to win fights.
“And then what about the rest of the people? How do you look at everybody else? Like this was not done individually, so who else was involved in him doing that? You got to look at a lot of people in that gym and go ‘wow you guys are kind of dirty.’”