Daniel Cormier's coach: Jon Jones is MMA's Lance Armstrong if proven guilty of cheating

Daniel Cormier’s longtime coach is waiting for the final outcome of Jon Jones’ second positive steroid test, but if the UFC light heavyweight champion isn’t able to clear himself, Javier Mendez believes the verdict should be clear.

“He’s going to be known as the greatest who coulda-woulda-shoulda and never has been,” Mendez, the American Kickboxing Academy coach, told MMAjunkie Radio. “It’s just the same like Lance Armstrong. He’s the greatest cyclist of all time, but then they proved he cheated, and where’s Lance Armstrong now? What’s he known as? That’s what’s going to happen here.”

Mendez said he was in disbelief when he heard Jones (23-1 MMA, 17-1 UFC) had tested positive for turabinol – a vintage steroid no longer in production – in a test administered after the weigh-ins for his UFC 214 rematch with Cormier (19-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC) on July 29 in Anaheim, Calif.

“I was feeling really good about the way he was acting around the fight, so I was thinking, ‘Hey, this guy’s changed,'” Mendez said. “I was saying, maybe this has all been good for him. But I don’t know. Is he really being real, or is he just acting that way?”

Mendez, like Cormier, is fighting the urge to draw conclusions. Cormier said he didn’t know what to think of the positive test and would wait to see whether the initial findings are confirmed.

“If you want to fast forward, and it’s proven as fact, then I’d be really upset, because you robbed yourself, you robbed the public, and you robbed ‘D.C.’ of the opportunity to find a clean fighter to see who really is the pound-for-pound greatest light heavyweight of all time,” Mendez said of Jones.

Until the full results management process plays out, Mendez said, any conclusions about Jones are “all talk.” He said if he were in Jones’ corner, he’d try to help in any way possible.

Asked what he’d say to Jones directly, however, the coach paused.

“I don’t think I’d say anything to him,” Mendez said. “He is who he is. I’d just accept him and move forward. You’d like to think he’s changed, but all fingers are pointing that he hasn’t changed.”

Up until now, Jones has been able to overcome all of his setbacks outside of the octagon. He reached plea agreements after multiple run-ins with the law and once evaded jail time. He escaped a suspension when it turned out an out-of-competition test was unwarranted. And he succeeded in getting a shorter timeout when he convinced arbitrators his first positive test for a banned substance was an accident.

Mendez said if Jones can’t prove his latest drug failure is the same situation, the Armstrong comparison is apt. Like the disgraced cyclist, he said Jones’ entire career would be suspect.

“How is it not possible for people to think, ‘Has he ever been clean? Are all of his UFC fights?’ You have to question that,” Mendez said. “I definitely would question that. But he still has due process, so still has an opportunity to clear himself, and if he does, then all of this is just talk.”

For more on UFC 214, check out the UFC Events section of the site.