The eternal saga of Jon Jones continued this week, as the former UFC champion faced what might be his fiercest foe yet—the California State Athletic Commission, where he finally confronted charges of performance-enhancing drug use before his title fight against Daniel Cormier last year at UFC 214.
The meeting Tuesday, a somewhat comical affair, featured one commissioner sans hearing aid, another giving Jones a verbal battering, a highly paid expert witness relying almost solely on information from a bodybuilding website and Jones himself admitting his signature was forged and that he never actually completed required training materials provided by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
In other words, it was the typical Jon Jones show.
At the end of the meeting, televised live online and thoroughly mocked on Twitter, Jones was fined $205,000 and had his license suspended in California. But the real decision was punted to USADA, which will adjudicate the issue later this year and decide how long Jones will be suspended from the sport, a number experts suggest could be anywhere from one to four years.
USADA will ponder the same questions we’ve all been asking ourselves in the wake of Jones’ latest batch of trouble, primarily whether or not he deserves leniency after multiple accusations of PED use. It’s an opportunity to show the world just how serious USADA is about sending a message to other athletes that cheating doesn’t pay. Industry veterans Chad Dundas and myself tackle the same issue in this edition of “The Question.”
Snowden: Jones is the greatest MMA fighter in the sport’s short history. The list of his victims could double as a collection of Hall of Famers in the 205-pound class. Whether at distance, in the clinch or on the mat, he remains one of the most dangerous athletes to ever step into the Octagon.
With respect, he’s also a giant, I mean impossibly big, screw up.
Everything we’ve learned about Jones over the years tells us two things for certain: 1) If he’s welcomed back to the Octagon, Jones will continue to thrill us with his athletic exploits; 2) Jones, no matter how sincere he appears in a press conference, is going to mess up again. Perhaps it will be in a new, innovative way, but it’s coming. At this point, it would be naive to think otherwise.
So, what do you think Chad? Is it time to bid Jones farewell? Or is what he offers the sport in excitement and excellence worth a few questionable drug tests and a collection of crashed cars. Is the juice worth the squeeze?
Dundas: If Jones’ UFC career ended here and now, I would consider it perhaps the greatest tragedy in a sport that breaks our hearts as a matter of routine. Though he’s already accomplished great things, Jones is but 30 years old, and it’s not unthinkable he could go on fighting another 10 years. Trying to imagine what he might achieve in that time is just mind-boggling.
Of course, to stick around even close to that long he’d have to stay out of trouble, which thus far he’s proved completely incapable of doing.
Sitting here some 24 hours removed from Jones’ disastrous performance in front of the CSAC, I still can’t quite believe how badly it went for him. His team projected confidence leading up to the hearing, going so far as to say they believed Jones would likely fight again in the UFC in 2018. Then he showed up with basically no defense whatsoever besides shrugging his shoulders, saying he had no idea how Turinabol metabolites showed up in his system and that he super-duper hoped everybody would believe him.
A big part of Jones’ denial is based on the notion it would be too dumb for him to knowingly take such an easily detectable steroid when he knew had had an in-competition drug test coming up. But that line of reasoning totally ignores the fact that Jones’ entire recent career has been derailed by him doing really, really dumb stuff over and over again.
Until Jones can chef-up a better explanation, consider me unconvinced of his innocence.
So, to answer your question, Jonathan, it would be a terrible blow to MMA to lose Jones, but it would also be something he brought entirely on himself.
Am I being too hard on the GOAT? And doesn’t it seem like USADA will have to throw the book at the guy if it has any hope of preserving the notion that the UFC’s new anti-doping efforts are for real?
Snowden: Personally, I enjoyed MMA best when it was an outlaw sport, the wild west of athletics with almost no rules and certainly no prohibitions on what you could put into your body to improve performance. It takes a unique person to become a cage fighter. If that requires a little bit extra, from whatever source, I’m okay with that.
Unfortunately, I don’t get to make the rules. And, at the behest of the Nevada Athletic Commission, UFC began officially drug testing fighters back in 2002.
Once you set a standard, it’s only fair that it applies equally to everyone. So, whether or not Jones is a money-making fighter for UFC, whether or not he exudes excellence in all areas and whether or not he was set up in some way, ultimately, he had a banned substance in his body.
Again.
I don’t think USADA can let that slide. I think a two-year ban is fair. It’s not a complete career-killer, but also not a mere slap on the wrist. But I’d also make sure it is clear that any other missteps would come complete with a lifetime ban. I’m willing to give Jones another chance—but not a single chance more. What do you think Chad? Too Judge Dredd?
Dundas: You and I differ on some core issues here, and that’s OK. For my money, the action in the cage has never been better or more fun to watch than it is right now. Twenty-five years of breakneck evolution has produced a generation of athletes who routinely do things we couldn’t have dreamed of at the genesis of so-called “no holds barred” fighting.
And yes, Jones was among the vanguard of that generation, consistently wowing audiences with his athletic greatness since his UFC debut in 2008.
Along with that evolution, however, I believe quality drug testing is necessary, in large part because anything else would be unfair to the fighters who compete without PEDs. That includes—we think—Daniel Cormier, whose only two career losses have come against Jones at UFC 189 and UFC 214.
I applaud the UFC for partnering with USADA to ramp up anti-doping efforts. While the program isn’t perfect, its heart is mostly in the right place.
The Jones situation represents an important, high-profile moment for that partnership. After the Brock Lesnar fiasco at UFC 200, it will be important for both the UFC and USADA to send a message that their increased testing efforts are more than just window-dressing.
If Jones can’t come up with a better defense than the one he presented to the CSAC, then he absolutely deserves whatever suspension he gets. If it’s two years retroactive to his positive test in August 2017, he’d be eligible to return in the fall of 2019, just two months after his 32nd birthday.
He’d still potentially have a long career ahead of him, but as you noted, he’d be all out of chances.
It’d be time for Jones to prove he can be great in MMA and in life.
Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.
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