In Jon Jones’ hour-long interview with Ariel Helwani, the former UFC light heavyweight champion directly accused the UFC of having full knowledge that Vitor Belfort “was on steroids” when he fought him at UFC 152 back in September 2012.
“Vitor Belfort was on steroids when I fought him,” Jones said. “The UFC was very well aware, way before the fight. They did nothing to penalize him. They let the fight go on knowing that I was fighting a guy on steroids, which is a hazard to my life. What do you do?”
This was based on Josh Gross’ Deadspin report that Belfort had elevated testosterone levels when tested in Nevada just a few weeks before the fight, but accidentally sent out the results to several unintended recipients via email. Despite the sketchy drug test results, which likely would’ve cancelled the fight had it been staged in Nevada, Jones vs. Belfort did happen in Ontario. The Canadian province’s athletic commission said they “were unaware of Belfort’s TRT or apparent use exemption. As far as the Ontario commission was concerned, any details related to testosterone exemptions were spelled out in the contract between the UFC and its fighters.” Meanwhile, the UFC said they could not disclose drug-testing or TUE info because of the commission.
For the first time since the story broke in September, UFC president Dana White made public comment on it, albeit via Jones’ remarks. When asked by Off the Record host Michael Landsberg about his thoughts on Jones’ remarks, the following conversation ensued:
White: “Jones said that?”
Landsberg: “Yeah, he did.”
White: “How would Jones know that?”
Landsberg: “I don’t know. I guess the first question is ‘Is it true? Did you know beforehand that Belfort was going to fail a test?’
White: “No, we didn’t know that. Was Jon Jones in our offices? Listen, Jon Jones is somebody who shouldn’t be talking about other people’s tests and what they’re doing.”
Landsberg: “That’s a good point.”
Aaaaaaand scene. You can watch the footage for yourself at the top of the page (Video via ZombieProphet) at the 8:15 timestamp.
That last line is clearly a shot at Jones testing positive for cocaine at UFC 182 earlier this year, even though the Nevada Athletic Commission was not supposed to test for recreational drugs when out-of-competition.
So for those of you who were curious to see if any interviewer would bring up the UFC 152 controversy to Dana White, it did happen today, and there’s your end result.
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