“Guy’s not feeling well and he calls the doctor. The doctor says, ‘Run five miles every day for a week and call me. At the end of the week, the guy calls the doctor who says, ‘How are you feeling?’ He says, ‘I don’t know, but I’m 35 miles away.’ Think about that.”
At least the opening joke set the tone for the rest of the Jon Jones California State Athletic Commission hearing.
The Jon Jones CSAC hearing was entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Before we get to the fun stuff, here is what went down.
The former UFC light heavyweight champion was revoked of his MMA licence and fined $205,000 for testing positive for the steroid Turinabol in an in-competition drug test for his UFC 214 headliner against Daniel Cormier. CSAC executive officer Andy Foster recommended that CSAC does not re-instate Jones until the conclusion of his USADA suspension. That date hasn’t been set yet, so we’ll have to wait to see what punishment USADA hand down.
Coming soon 👀 #justwait4it https://t.co/R06L0Vtz5e
— malki kawa (@malkikawa) January 4, 2018
It became clear pretty quickly that Jones’ defence wasn’t as strong as the rumblings suggested.
Jones even said at one point that he took supplements that were ‘USADA approved’. USADA obviously doesn’t approve supplements. The expert witness said that based on research from bodybuilding websites, Jones probably didn’t take the steroid deliberately. During Jones’ testimony, he even brought up how ‘dumb’ a person would have to be in order to take a single dose of steroids the week of a fight. Not the strongest defence for someone who the UFC made a fantastic promo based on all the ‘dumb’ stuff he’s done throughout his career.
When one of the panel members seriously asked him if he considered changing his management, Jones turned to his manager and jokingly said that had considered it many times, before swiftly admitting that he was joking.
All the entertainment didn’t come from Jones though. Father Time had his moments too.
The 10-year panel veteran pictured above was probably correct when by reckoning he was “older than everybody here.” He made it known that he couldn’t hear every question because he forgot his hearing aid before telling everyone to seek out reporter Stephen A. Smith as if he was some obscure figure.
At one point, this chap actually said, ‘some of you probably never heard of him.’
Odds are, if you live on the other side of the Atlantic, you’ve definitely heard of the broadcast stalwart who has close to four million Twitter followers.
Right before the end of the hearing, we shit you not, a random MMA fan went up and testified on behalf of Jones.
He commented with the inflexion of a question that if ‘you guys make any decision, it should be a monetary punishment?’ He did admit that it was merely his opinion on everything that was being said.
Peak MMA.
