Dana White: ‘Jon Jones Did Not Do Anything Wrong’
After Jon Jones' lengthy history of sabotaging himself, how could UFC officials decide to move an entire event from one city to another on one week's notice just to keep his main event bout intact? UFC president Dana White says it's because, "Jon Jones didn't do anything wrong."
Jones had been sidelined for an anti-doping violation for the past year and a half. He was recently cleared by California, where the fight pertaining to the July 2017 violation occurred, leaving him open to pursue his license in Nevada for UFC 232. He is scheduled to fight Alexander Gustafsson for the UFC light heavyweight championship in the event's main event.
A Dec. 9 test by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which administers the UFC’s Anti-Doping Policy, found that a residual amount of the same substance for which he had just been cleared, turinabol. It was an amount that USADA did not consider a positive result and for which it declared it would not sanction Jones.
“Both USADA and worldwide anti-doping experts told us this was not a re-ingestion of a prohibited substance, it was remaining effects from the July 2017 positive test — for which he was already sanctioned,” Novitzky said on ESPN. “And probably more importantly, he retains no performance-enhancing benefits from the small presence of the substance.
“Let’s make this clear, this is not another violation. This is a residual effect from the July 2017 positive test.”
Notified of the result, Nevada officials did not feel they had adequate time to properly vet the test result in accordance with Jones’ drug testing history, and thus wouldn’t be able to rule on Jones’ case in time for UFC 232 on Saturday. So the UFC made the unprecedented decision to move the event from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.
Of course, the move is largely about keeping the event intact and mitigating the loss of money. It can only be assumed that UFC officials felt they would lose less money by moving the event to Los Angeles than it would by losing its main event and taking a massive pay-per-view hit.
TRENDING > VIDEO: Dana White Explains How Jon Jones Drug Test Abnormality Caused UFC 232 Move
White, however, in announcing the move on ESPN, said that the fight was one that needs to take place and that it was the right thing to do to keep the fight intact, as he felt that neither Jones nor Gustafsson did anything wrong.
“Who has made more mistakes than Jon Jones? The answer is nobody. Jon Jones has got his life together. He did not test positive; he did not do anything wrong here. Gustafsson has flown in from Sweden. He’s been here for weeks training for this fight, spent money. Jon Jones has trained for this fight,” White explained in defending the move.
“Neither guy violated any rules or did anything wrong. These guys need to fight; it’s for the title. They should fight. It’s the right thing to do.”
