UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones is considered by many as the greatest mixed martial artist of all time. Jones was the 8th fighter to win a UFC title in two different weight classes.
He first became champion at UFC 128 when he stopped Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua to win the light heavyweight division. Bones successfully defended the belt 11 times across two different reigns before becoming heavyweight champion at UFC 285 after submitting Cyril Gane at UFC 285.
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Aside from winning two UFC belts, what makes Jones’ career impressive is the fact that he’s never been defeated via stoppage or points inside the Octagon. Jon’s record is 27-1 with one no-contest but the loss was a result of a controversial disqualification and the no-contest was originally a knockout win which was overturned after Jones tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug.
On August 22, 2017, Jones failed a pre-fight drug test related to his UFC 214 rematch against Daniel Cormier. In that drug test, conducted one day before the event, Jones tested positive for an anabolic steroid called Turinabol. Jones ended up getting suspended for 18 months and his win over Cormier was overturned by the California State Athletic Commission into a no-contest. The suspension was later reduced by three months after an independent arbitrator ruled that Jones did not intentionally cheat.
Prior to that, Jones also received a one-year suspension in 2016 after he tested positive for two banned substances – clomiphene and letrozole prior to his aborted UFC 200 bout against Cormier. The failed drug test forced Jones to withdraw from the event although he claimed innocence throughout the investigation. He blamed the incident on a contaminated erectile dysfunction drug called Cialis which isn’t a banned substance but contained the two flagged substances. Although Jones was suspended, he was cleared of being a drug cheat.
Jones also failed a drug test in the lead-up to his first bout with DC at UFC 182. Jon tested positive for benzoylecgonine, which is the primary metabolite of cocaine. But because the substance isn’t banned out of competition by WADA, Jones was allowed to compete during the event. Jones was randomly tested one month before the fight and he passed the test, which meant that the cocaine substance was already out of his body when he entered the Octagon against Cormier. Still, that incident cost Jon $25,000 in fines for violating the UFC’s
Athlete Code of Conduct Policy. Jones went on to deny that he was a cocaine addict.
In 2019, the US Anti-Doping Agency changed the threshold for prohibited substances to 100 picograms. If the new limits were applied to all of Jon Jones’ past drug tests, he would have never failed a single test. That led to Jones issuing a statement last year.
“USADA has changed some of the rules regarding picograms and what’s allowed, and I’ve come to find out that all my findings are all under the new legal limit, meaning that I would’ve been cleared from every test that I’ve ever taken, and that means a lot to me,” Jones told reporters at the UFC 285 media day.
Failed drug tests have been the main knock on Jones’ legendary MMA career. But with the change in rules, you could argue that he never really failed a single drug test in his MMA career.