Jon Jones had the perfect redemption story when he defeated Daniel Cormier in their rematch at UFC 214. But it was all nullified in a snap when tested positive for the anabolic steroid Turinabol, as confirmed by USADA.
Rightfully, Cormier’s initial reaction was that of disappointment but was unable to put his emotions into words. On Monday’s episode delved deeper into how he actually felt upon learning about Jones’ recent PED-related infraction.
“It takes time to get through something like [UFC 214],” Cormier told Ariel Helwani (via MMA Fighting) “I’ve experienced it. I’ve experienced it at a high level with the Olympics and the Jones fights and the NCAA finals. It takes time to get over these things, and when you start to come around, the last thing you want to do is be sucked back into the situation that you’re trying to overcome. So it was tough. It took a day. I felt sick.”
“We got to Disney Aulani (on vacation) and it was time to check in, and I had to go to my room and lay down, just because my head was spinning. Because you just don’t really know how to take news like that.”
The part that baffled Cormier the most was the fact that this was not Jones’ first time to fail a drug test in the UFC because of performance enhancing drugs. He was speaking from his experience being part of the USADA testing pool for 16 years now.
“All of this time that I was in the USADA program, I was actually taking supplements, and I never actually had anything like that happen,” Cormier said. “So I just don’t understand how something like that could happen, especially back-to-back.”
“And I really want to be careful with how I answer these questions because Jon is entitled to the process of what’s going to happen with his other tests,” he continued. “But I think in the last case (before UFC 200), they said he was reckless, so they gave him a year (suspension). How could you be reckless again going into another fight? It’s so odd.”
“So for me, it’s very concerning, because it seems as though in the last two fights that him and I were supposed to fight, that something like that happens. And I don’t want to be sour grapes. That’s why it’s hard to answer the question — he won the fight. But it just makes it very odd.”
The decision has yet to be made about whether or not Jones would be stripped of the light heavyweight title.
About the author
