Twitter Mailbag: Did Jon Jones' CSAC appearance somehow make things even worse?

Can an athletic commission hearing go so badly that you actually make your eventual punishment worse? Will USADA agree, once it has its say over the former UFC light heavyweight champ? And what does it mean now that Amazon is apparently selling UFC pay-per-views?

All that and more in this week’s Twitter Mailbag. To ask a question of your own, tweet to @BenFowlkesMMA.

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No way, but that’s mostly because career implosions are one of the things MMA does best. Still, Jon Jones did himself zero favors with his testimony in front of the California State Athletic Commission.

To recap: Jones does not dispute the results of the test – he admitted there were steroid metabolites in his body – but he’s sure he didn’t put them there, even if he doesn’t know who or what did, and anyway it wouldn’t make sense for him to cheat in this particular way even if he were a cheater, which is something he will “never admit to.”

So yeah, from the defense itself to the precise wording of his denial, this didn’t go so great.

Pretty much the only thing working in Jones’ favor here is circumstances. That he would test positive for this steroid, and only at this time, that’s the part that’s tough to explain. But then, he doesn’t offer an alternative explanation. All he tells us is that he didn’t cheat, he wouldn’t cheat, and come on, you guys, you gotta believe him.

The problem, which was not lost on CSAC commissioners, is that Jones’ personal life does not make him seem all that trustworthy. And while he said he’s learned from and taken responsibility for his mistakes, he also talks like a man who still sees himself as a victim. (At one point Jones pointed to all the money he’d paid out in a settlement after he “got in” a hit-and-run accident, as if it’s just something that happened, rather than an accident he caused and then fled from.)

The one thing that might save him is the nature of all these mistakes. Jones is a guy who, again and again, screws up out of sheer recklessness. He’s not the calculating cheater (his defense at the CSAC shows he’s not super great at planning ahead) so much as he is the guy who has never learned to look before he leaps.

His career probably isn’t over, not even with a long suspension. It could be significantly diminished, however, and all because of his actions, both past and present. What’s troubling is how, when confronted with his own mistakes, he seems to think it’s all so deeply unfair.

Even considering the possibility that this admission was somehow a strategy is giving them way too much credit. There’s no way Jones and his team sat down before this hearing and told each other, “OK one thing we definitely want to make sure we do is tell them that we falsified some USADA documents so Jon could prevent himself from actually learning anything about the anti-doping policy. That’ll really earn their trust.”

Instead, it seemed to only strengthen the CSAC’s belief that one of Jones’ problems is that he’s surrounded by enablers who help him avoid responsibility for his actions.

I can’t see that playing well with USADA when it comes time to decide on a suspension. Jones put the anti-doping agency in a tough spot. Even if it wanted to go especially easy on him, he’s given no plausible explanation for how that turinabol got in his body, and now he’s added an admission of a willful disregard for USADA’s educational tools.

To let him off with a slap on the wrist after that would be like admitting that the program has no teeth – at least for UFC stars. If Lyoto Machida got 18 months for being too honest on his paperwork, how could Jones end up with anything less than two years for this, his second offense, for which he has no real explanation?

Even after failing one test already, he still admitted that it wasn’t worth his time to do the tutorials. It’s like he’s daring USADA to make an example of him. He might just get his wish, too.

It’s interesting that we’re asking this only about Mike Perry, and not also about Sam Alvey, who fought on the same card and whose wife (this time even on crutches) is always a fixture in his corner.

They aren’t the only ones, either. Female fighters in particular have often had boyfriends and girlfriends in their corners, and male fighters have brought wives and mothers and fathers and brothers. Sometimes it’s people who are fellow fighters and know the sport. Sometimes it’s just someone who cares about the fighter and is there to lend support.

Not everyone in the corner ends up giving advice, and plenty of people who aren’t dating the fighter in question have given their share of bad advice over the years.

Perry must have a reason for doing it this way, but I’m not convinced that either of his last two fights were decided by the presence or absence of specific people in his corner.

All I ask is that we reserve our excitement for someone who’s actually going to stick around. Brock Lesnar? He gets run out of the sport first by knees to the gut, then by two failed drug tests, and I’m supposed to be pumped about him using the UFC to make the WWE jealous? Get outta here.

That leaves Conor McGregor, who may never fight again or may fight twice this year, depending on who ask. Then there’s Jones, who could be facing a long suspension. Then Cain Velasquez, who probably isn’t getting any less fragile with age.

What MMA needs now is not just a one-off guest star to bring driveby interest. We need someone who is really about this life, and who can stay about it without sabotaging themselves. Is there anyone like that out there? Please?

You act as if the fighters have a choice. If they can get a fight and a win against a high-profile opponent, sure, go for that. If they can’t, the only other option is to try and build up a winning streak.

But for the moment, neither strategy has resulted in a crack at the title. That’s a shame, because it stalls one of the more interesting divisions in the UFC, one with a sudden wealth of young talent. If the UFC wants to make the most of it, it needs to hurry up and book some more fights at 170 pounds.

Remember it? I was in the building for that one. What I recall most was that, due to her shock of hair so blonde it was almost white, every time Cris Cyborg punched her in the face it looked like someone was assaulting one of the kids from Hanson.

Yana Kunitskaya comes to us as the most recent Invicta FC bantamweight champion, so sure, right there she probably has a better chance than Finney, who was 8-7 with no significant wins when she took on Cyborg. Still, having a better chance than someone with zero chance doesn’t mean you have a good chance, if you know what I’m saying.

The most notable example in MMA was Team Takedown, which invested in talented amateur wrestlers and subsidized their transition into MMA. The most successful fighter to come out of that experiment was former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks, who stayed with the team just long enough to win and then lose a title before he jumped ship.

It’s been done in boxing, too, perhaps most notably with Joe Frazier and Cloverlay, a company founded on $250-per-share investments from some 40 shareholders who wanted to own a piece of a promising young fighter. (“The New York Times” once explained the company’s name as “a Joycean contraction of clover, for luck, and overlay, meaning a good bet.”)

The problem is that it really only works if the payouts climb high enough, which they rarely do in MMA. Fighters just don’t make enough money in this sport to justify the initial investment, especially when there are so many ways that even the most promising career can amount to nothing.

The timing sure makes it interesting. Then again, what’s the incentive for me to buy my pay-per-view through Amazon right now? I’m an Amazon Prime member (because of course I am, because it’s not like they even give you a chance not to be) and still it’s $65 in HD. That’s the same price as it is through my cable provider or UFC Fight Pass, so it’s not like this is a game-changer just yet.

What it might be, however, is a sign that the UFC is at least thinking about avenues beyond traditional TV options. Still, if you’re just offering the same exact thing through a different outlet, I’m not sure how excited I can get about it. PPV is one aspect of the UFC product that never seems to change, no matter who the company signs a TV deal with.

Maybe, but it won’t be the same exact sport we’re used to. A couple years ago, I talked to the CEO of the International MMA Federation about its push to get a modified version of MMA into the Olympics, and officials remain optimistic that it could be a possibility for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

The IMMAF frames it as a safety issue. It can only gain the authority to tell promoters what standards they have to follow if the sport is recognized by some broad international body such as the International Olympic Committee.

But fans need to know that even if MMA does end up in the Olympics some day, it’s not like McGregor and Nate Diaz will be smashing each other in five-minute rounds with the gold medal on the line. The fights in IMMAF competitions are shorter and not as violent. The rules are different. And the fighters are going to be amateurs you’ve never heard of. Still, it’s a start.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.