Former UFC Light heavyweight champion Jon Jones maintains his innocence following a failed drugs test last year.
On September 18, 2018, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced that Jon Jones would receive a 15-month backdated suspension for testing positive for Turinabol, an anabolic steroid before his scheduled fight with Daniel Cormier at UFC 214.
Cormier claimed that Jones wouldn’t have been suspended at all if he was actually innocent and the former champion did not take too kindly at all to those comments when appearing on ESPN’s First Take.
“What is my reaction to that? Can we swear on this show? Screw Daniel Cormier,” Jones said. “Screw Daniel Cormier. My last situation was a terrible situation, steroid allegation type of thing. It wasn’t an allegation — I did have a trace amount of steroids in my body. Thank goodness went through their whole process to prove my innocence. Through science, we were able to prove that there was a very trace amount of steroids in my body. One of the people said, ‘The amount of steroids in Jon Jones’ body was like taking a pinch of salt and throwing it into an Olympic-sized swimming pool.’
“And that’s something that, we have no clue how it got into my body. We did everything in our power to figure out how it got into my body, where this came from. I’ve spent thousands of thousands of dollars throughout all of this, testing and getting supplements tested. We were still not able to figure out where it came from.
“Instead of judging and just saying, ‘Oh, this guy’s lying, because he’s always been a winner,’ you look at the science and USADA is a credible drug-testing agency,” Jones added. “They always have been. They tested Lance Armstrong and just lots of great athletes, the highest level athletes throughout history, and they don’t make mistakes. So the fact that I’m here back fighting is because they don’t make mistakes and I was able to be proven innocent.”
Cormier said after Jones’ suspension that he’s been tested 70 times over the course of his career and that he’s never made any mistakes when it comes to testing.
”Here’s the deal: when it comes to USADA, they can’t come to my house any more at 6AM,” Cormier said.
“What’s the point? They’ve come to my house 15 times. When it comes to USADA they can’t come to my house any more. You don’t need to. You don’t need to come, I’m not going to fail any tests. I’m not going to make any mistakes. I’m not going to have to sit up there and say ‘I’m serious this time, guys, I promise I really wasn’t trying to cheat.’”
“70 times since I started wrestling internationally, and I have never made a mistake. It’s not that hard. So even having to sit here and do this again shows that this guy’s ridiculous.”
