Looks like all the talk about changing glove sizes for Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather wasn’t just a bluff from “Money.” Much has been made over the glove size going into McGregor vs. Mayweather. In the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), fighters use four ounce gloves. That isn’t the case in boxing. The glove size varies […]
Looks like all the talk about changing glove sizes for Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather wasn’t just a bluff from “Money.” Much has been made over the glove size going into McGregor vs. Mayweather. In the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), fighters use four ounce gloves. That isn’t the case in boxing. The glove size varies […]
While Nick Diaz’s negotiated 18 month suspension (for testing positive for marijuana in-competition when he fought Anderson Silva) was up in the Summer, he had yet to be cleared to be re-l…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8CicJZk-Y
Free at last.
While Nick Diaz’s negotiated 18 month suspension (for testing positive for marijuana in-competition when he fought Anderson Silva) was up in the Summer, he had yet to be cleared to be re-licensed by the state of Nevada. That’s because he had yet to pay what he owed on his fine, and it led to him being unable to corner his brother Nate at UFC 202 in August in Las Vegas. Officially, Nick had a December 1st deadline, and whether or not he made it just in time is unclear, but per MMAFighting, he’s officially able to be licensed again.
Ariel Helwani noted in the MMAFighting report that it wasn’t explicit if Diaz would suffer any consequences if he settled up after the deadline. That it took a week into December before we heard about this definitely makes you wonder if he paid late, but regardless, that doesn’t really matter anymore. Diaz has no fights booked, though, which is not exactly shocking since he’s fought irregularly in recent years, living in large part off the money he made from fighting Georges St-Pierre. That said, even if he’s not planning on fighting, at least he can corner his brother and other teammates again.
Former undisputed light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones is in the dog house. The troubled 29-year old this time played a big role in the UFC 200 fight week drama that ended with his removal from the main event. ‘Bones” history of unsavoury behaviour finally caught up to him in 2015. After failing a dope screen for
Former undisputed light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones is in the dog house. The troubled 29-year old this time played a big role in the UFC 200 fight week drama that ended with his removal from the main event. ‘Bones” history of unsavoury behaviour finally caught up to him in 2015. After failing a dope screen for cocaine, Jones took things to the next level. Leaving a pregnant woman injured at the scene of a pretty hairy car wreck in New Mexico, Jones’ employers responded by stripping him of his championship.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest fighters to ever enter the sport, Jones’ frustrating tale was far from over at this point. After serving an indefinite suspension from the UFC, ending officially on October 23, 2015, Jones was soon booked in to rematch Daniel Cormier. ‘DC’ had won the vacant belt in the absence of the former champion, and made his first successful title defense against Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 192.
Jon Jones had a huge chance at redemption when he was booked against Daniel Cormier at UFC 200…
Redemption? Nah…
Originally scheduled to fight at UFC 197, Jones and Cormier would see another setback. When the champ fell out injured, ‘Bones’ would instead face Ovince St-Preux in a somewhat humdrum performance. Defeating ‘OSP’ by decision for the interim belt, a unification match was set for the UFC 200 main event. After all the controversies outside the octagon, the battle with his inner demons and well publicised struggles with drug addiction, was it finally time for Jon Jones to come full circle? No, it was not.
Wednesday July 6 was meant to be the best day of the year for MMA and UFC fans; The middle of a fight week that featured three events culminating in the historic UFC 200 card on July 9. Up until the moment Jeff Novitsky took the stand during an impromptu presser, the UFC 200 card was looking solid. Once the USADA violation on Jones’ part was announced, the milestone pay-per-view card steadily slid in to turmoil.
Backlash
Jones addressed the media during an emotional moment, claiming that tainted supplements had caused his positive test on June 16, 2016. It was later revealed that anti-estrogen Clomephine and Letrozole were to blame for the USADA bust, the very same substance that UFC 200 co-main event heavyweight Brock Lesnar would fail two tests for. As a result, the light-heavyweight division is once again without Jones. USADA and the Nevada Athletic Commission will decide how long ‘Bones’ and Lesnar will be out for, but the ramifications of these controversies are far from confined to suspension length.
Lesnar’s opponent Mark Hunt has gone on the offensive against the UFC and USADA. After being defeated by the WWE star and learning of his discrepancies, ‘The Super Samoan’ blasted his employers and publicly announced his fighters unions inauguration. All this, and we’ve not really taken into consideration Jones’ interim strap, and the impact on the rest of the division.
Say goodbye to the bad guy…again
As we await Jones’ hearing with the NAC, we’ve now learned that he’s been removed completely from the official UFC rankings. ‘Bones’ is not alone though, as former light-heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida and fellow offender Brock Lesnar are also scratched from the ranks.
It looks like we can now call Jones the ex-light-heavyweight interim champion now too. A sad day for MMA, as once again the superbly talented ‘Bones’ faces an uncertain future. There is no good to come from this story, at least non that we can see as of now.
Jon Jones tested positive for cocaine earlier this week! You know what that means, right? If you guessed an overhaul of drug testing procedures and increased transparency from the Nevada Athletic Commission and the UFC, you’d be wrong. No, what this significant development in MMA means is another Wanderlei Silva pro wrestling-style shoot promo.
He set his sights on the NAC, bashing them for ruining Jones’ reputation and for being the bumbling, corrupt idiots we all sort of know they are (transcript via MMA Fighting). Read it after the jump.
Jon Jones tested positive for cocaine earlier this week! You know what that means, right? If you guessed an overhaul of drug testing procedures and increased transparency from the Nevada Athletic Commission and the UFC, you’d be wrong. No, what this significant development in MMA means is another Wanderlei Silva pro wrestling-style shoot promo.
He set his sights on the NAC, bashing them for ruining Jones’ reputation and for being the bumbling, corrupt idiots we all sort of know they are (transcript via MMA Fighting):
Let’s analyze what happened to Jon Jones. [The NAC is] saying that test shouldn’t have been done out of competition and that it was an accident. So they went to test him and accidentally tested for cocaine. But now Jon Jones’ champion image is damaged. So what’s the commission going to do about this? They go, ‘ah, we don’t know, we’ll see what’s going to happen.’ Are there laws or are there no laws? Sometimes there are laws and sometimes there are none? There are no protocols to be followed? Where are the laws? Who voted for them? Who implements them? You are lost, you don’t know what you are doing.
Good points. He’d go on to make a few more…
This sport has to be regulated. The way that it’s going can’t continue. This commission is a mess. They don’t know what they are [doing]. You can punish or not? There’s no set punishment, there’s no set testing system. You guys have to be professionals, you ask for fighters to be professionals when you are not. How can you want to put people on trial without laws? Without laws that apply equally to all? Everybody knows the UFC is a business. They put on fights to make money, and in those regards they’re not wrong. But the entity that implements the laws for the athletes, the entity that punishes athletes and controls their lives yet doesn’t know what they’re doing, just can’t be. It’s a commission that doesn’t follow protocols or laws. So you better clean up this mess. Instead of regulating it, you are damaging the sport.
While Silva’s words have truth to them (hell, we agree with pretty much all of them) they sound awfully strange coming from the guy who literally ran away from a piss-cup-carrying commission member.
And Silva has released scathing videos like this before, one on fighter sponsorships and the other on fighter pay. Being a disgraced fighter and habitually releasing scathing videos is putting Silva dangerously close to fringe MMA weirdo territory — think Luke Cummo and Dan Quinn. And once you become one of those guys, there’s no coming back. You’re condemned to signing autographs in third-rate pizza places for all eternity.
We still want to love you, Wandy, you’re just making it harder and harder. So instead of latching onto the popular cause of the minute every few weeks, please figure out how to escape your UFC contract so we can watch you murder professional wrestlers in Bellator.
![jon-jones-ap[1]](http://cdn.lowkickmma.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/jon-jones-ap1.jpg)
