UFC 232 WILL be moved from Las Vegas to LA due to licensing issue involving Jon Jones in the state of Nevada, president Dana White revealed.
A trace amount of the banned substance turinabol was discovered in a drug test administered to Jones (22-1) – who is scheduled to face Alexander Gustafsson (18-4) on Saturday – on 9 December.
Jones tested positive for turinabol in 2017 and was suspended by the UFC for 15 months. The The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) issued a statement on Sunday, which said the small amount of the drug was from the 31-year-old’s “prior exposure for which he was previously sanctioned.”
The showdown has now been relocated from T-Mobile Arena to The Forum in Inglewood, California.
White told ESPN’s SportsCenter: “Nevada does not have the time to see us and go through a hearing to find out what California already knows.
“There’s not enough time for Nevada to do this, so we’re moving the event to California where the commission has already dealt with Jon Jones. They were the ones dealing with this and they have all the history with him.”
White added: “If these guys even doubted that something bad happened here and he was wrong or whatever, the fight’s off. We’d pull the fight.
“Jones didn’t do anything wrong here. All the biggest experts, the smartest people in the world that deal with this are saying that he did not cheat, he didn’t do anything. So how do we not do this fight?”
UFC vice-president of Athlete Health and Performance Jeff Novitzky told USA Today that Jones had not violated the anti-doping program.
“He’s been cleared to fight in terms of the USADA program. … USADA fully analysed it internally,” Novitzky said. “They reached out to outside experts from around the world. They reached out to another sports league that has seen the same issue.
“And all of them, independent of us, determined that this was not a re-ingestion of the substance and this very, very small amount that was occurring and still showing up, according to these expects from around the world, did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit.”
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So Joes gets found with drugs in his system and the UFC just moves. How can anyone take the UFC serious now ?
@Eoghain Kenneally: Jones
@Eoghain Kenneally: it’s not just the UFC, the attitude to drug use in American sports is right up there with anything the Russians have done. Baseball & American football are rife with steroid use and when players get caught nobody cares. Track and field, cycling have huge names still involved in the sport who have been caught cheating and the public still follow.
Money talks lads and Jones is box office material for em
This is a laughing stock of a company now
The last line made me laugh. “Did not provide any performance enhancing benefit”
I think ufc just moving this whole thing last minute will cause some serious unrest among fighters and have some maybe looking at moving away from ufc, this is being done just to suit one guy who has been busted for doping so many times and Dana is showing no regard for the other fighters or the fans.
Jones (22-1) ???
@Declan Ryan: What’s your curiousity? That is his record.
He lost to Hamill. Got a DQ for going at him with 12 to 6 elbows.
Get rid of that clown! As good as he is how many mistakes/accidents can be allowed? If he’s been banned for it already then he’s either stupid or cheating