It seemed too good to be true and then—it was.
Just a few days away from becoming the star-studded reality that fans had dreamed about, UFC 200 suffered a major blow Wednesday night. Interim light heavyweight champion Jon Jones was flagged for "a potential Anti-Doping Policy violation," according to an official statement from the UFC, and his long-awaited second grudge match with Daniel Cormier was scrapped as the megacard's main event.
If there is any silver lining to this story, it's that UFC 200 might be the only event all year that could withstand the sudden removal of Jones. Brock Lesnar's heavyweight return fight against Mark Hunt will now serve as the three-round marquee attraction, and the show—more or less—will go on.
For Jones, however, this sudden withdrawal must be considered an out-and-out personal disaster. He was only newly returned from being stripped of his title and suspended by the UFC in the wake of last April's hit-and-run accident. Now he's most likely facing another suspension. It also feels as though he may have finally gone too far for fans to ever allow him into their hearts again.
How will Jones' latest personal gaffe affect his once rock-solid legacy? Can he still rightly be considered the light heavyweight GOAT and a shoo-in to one day be considered the greatest MMA fighter of all time? Here, Bleacher Report MMA writers Chad Dundas (that's me), Jonathan Snowden, Scott Harris and Mike Chiappetta discuss whether Bones just reached his breaking point.
Chad: Gentlemen, we’re dealing with a fluid situation here—no pun intended—but we’ll do our best to stay on top of it. As of this writing, the latest is this: UFC President Dana White told Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd that Jones tested positive for two banned substances. He is obviously off the UFC 200 card in the wake of these findings and an emotional public news conference. White insists Cormier will still fight, and the company is sifting through possible opponents, with an announcement expected shortly.
This is not Jones’ first out-of-the-cage transgression—far from it, in fact—but this one comes just as the oft-maligned light heavyweight GOAT was experiencing a rare moment of public support. Some MMA fans were affronted when the UFC stripped Jones of his title and suspended him last year. They rejected Cormier’s claim to 205-pound gold and seemed happy to have Jones back after his reinstatement eight months ago.
Now comes this, and you can feel public perception shifting again. At this point, it’s easy to get the impression some fans are beyond fed up with Jones and his inability to get out of his own way.
Jonathan, pretend for a moment this goes as badly as possible for Jones and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency slaps him with something approaching a two-year ban. How much, if at all, does this ultimately affect the legacy of the guy we once assumed would wind up as the greatest MMA fighter of all time?
Jonathan: They have a saying in Texas. Probably in Montana too. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice? No, sir. I won't be fooled again.
Jones has fooled us all several times. For years he masqueraded as one of the good guys, a Christian family man even, while not so secretly living a life of extreme hedonism. He paid a price for that subterfuge with both fans and sponsors, losing both by the droves.
But America loves a comeback almost as much as it loves to watch a man fall from grace—and that's exactly what UFC 200 offered. His character was "changed man," and at the very least he owed us a good faith effort at pretending things were different this time around. A contrite Jones was supposed to come in here, say all the right things and reclaim his title from Cormier.
Instead, Jones once again ruined poor Cormier's special night. At this point it's hard to offer Jones the benefit of the doubt. He can claim he's the best light heavyweight in the world when he consistently steps into the cage and defends his claim. That's part of the gig—and he hasn't proved capable of living up to his obligations.
Scott: "I'm sure all of you know who I am."
So spoke a Ms. Denise White, who ran Thursday's news conference. Despite White's presumptions, no, I didn't know who she was. So I looked her up.
White heads EAG Sports Management, a Los Angeles company that represents professional athletes and broadcasters, mainly in the NFL space. EAG presumably represents Jones or the UFC, even though neither is mentioned on EAG's client page. They're not agents but rather service providers in public relations, marketing and crisis management, among other things.
If everyone but idiot me knows who she and her firm are, presumably they typically do a better job than they did Thursday.
Despite the accountability he carries over his own body and decisions, it was hard not to feel for Jones as he sat at that table. He regularly leaned over to White or his manager, Malki Kawa, for side conversations. They tossed the microphone around like a hot potato.
Who wants to take this question? Whoever drew the short straw regularly fumbled for the right word or response.
Even, or maybe especially, if Jones and his people didn't want to provide the right information or simply didn't have it—both are understandable positions, by the way—perhaps a little preparation was in order. How about a little media training? How about some coordination on what, exactly, was OK and not OK to say, or what, exactly, they did and did not know?
Hell, how about finding a couple of shirts that didn't make Jones and Kawa look like they slept in their clothes? That's not a bad starting place.
As it was, people who probably should have been on the periphery got in the way of a moment that should, for better and worse, have been about Jones. Despite the difficulty he had of keeping his composure at times, he handled himself well and displayed what came off as genuine contrition and anguish.
If you're managing this crisis, isn't that what you want everyone to remember?
To paraphrase Eli Manning, Jones has bigger things to worry about than his press conferences. But if the people around him are that sloppy when the cameras are rolling, it's easy to imagine similar if not lower levels of organization as Team Jones strolls the aisles of the Albuquerque GNC, judging supplement bottles not by ingredients but by the number of exclamation points.
Bottom line: Jones once said that part of his problem was surrounding himself with the wrong people. Maybe that concept extends beyond the walls of the nightclub. You don't want everyone knowing you for the wrong reasons. Although at this point, it's probably too late.
Mike: When this happened, it seems like the first instinct of most was disgust and anger toward Jones, as if he stole something from them. Which in a way, I suppose he did. This was a landmark event and an intriguing matchup, and many people were invested in both largely because of his participation.
But it mostly makes me sad. I can’t imagine what it is like to live with so much of your life in public for all the world to see. We all make mistakes—sometimes the same ones repeatedly. It is a human quality to fail and a heartless quality to celebrate failure.
A lot of the backlash to Jones over time has been because he was seen as duplicitous. He spoke about his faith and about leading a Christian life, and he’s repeatedly shown himself to fall short of the high standards he’s discussed. I don’t judge him for that or for his lapses of judgment.
In a way, it makes him more relatable. How many of us are perfect, anyway? His failures just happen to be higher profile than yours or mine.
His legacy is another story. His list of transgressions practically rivals his numerous accomplishments, and that’s fair game to judge. Jones is just a couple of weeks from his 29th birthday. He’s not a kid anymore, and for someone whose stated goal is to be the best ever, he may be about to forfeit two years of his prime to something that was avoidable with due diligence.
Whatever the outcome, it's his penalty to own. It's his reputation to dent.
Cormier once famously told Jones to “get your s--t together” (warning: NFSW language). Those kinds of warnings have become common for Jones, and after this latest career fiasco, his future gets pretty simple. Either he does it and chases his destiny, or he continues to live by his own rules and one day wakes up with the nightmare regret that every athlete fears—wondering just how great he could have been.
