When former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones goes before the California State Athletic Commission on Feb. 27, his manager, Malki Kawa, expects a decision of no further punishment.
“In my mind, he’s innocent – I know it for a fact,” Kawa told MMAjunkie Radio. “So for me, there’s no way in the world these guys are going to punish him. I just don’t see how they do it. It would be an outrage to me if they suspended him longer.”
Following his victory over Daniel Cormier at UFC 214, Jones was notified that he had tested positive for the steroid Turinabol in a sample collected on July 28, the day prior to the fight. He was provisionally suspended by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. The UFC stripped the title from Jones and returned it to Cormier. It was Jones’ second anti-doping violation.
Jones’ first anti-doping violation stemmed from what was eventually deemed the reckless, but not intentional, ingestion of two banned substances that forced his removal from his UFC 200 headlining bout with Cormier just days prior to the event.
The result of the test surrounding UFC 214 also sounds somewhat questionable, as Jones had tested clean just a couple weeks prior to that and then tested clean again a few weeks after.
“Looking at the information they have, from what they’ve gathered, from what they told me, it doesn’t make any sense,” Kawa said. “No one understands it. You passed this test, then you failed this test that you knew was coming, and then you passed one after that. And it was such a small amount that, it came from somewhere that we just don’t know where, and it was such a small amount that it’s obvious he wasn’t trying to cheat.
“So what USADA is looking at is, how do we move forward with this? To me, it’s very simple. He’s not guilty. You’re supposed to test guys to keep the sport clean. Did it give him an advantage? The answer is no. USADA will tell you this, and the UFC will tell you this.”
Be that as it may, neither USADA nor the CSAC are generally very forgiving when a prohibited substance is found in an athlete’s system, particularly a steroid. Jones follows under the jurisdiction of both, although USADA and most athletic commissions tend to work fairly closely together.
If everything moves forward as planned, Jones should know much more about his UFC future on Feb. 27.
