UPDATE: Dana White has stripped Jon Jones of his Light Heavyweight title for the second time in as many years. Full details here.
Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight champion Jon Jones was suspended one year by United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on Monday (Nov. 7, 2016) for returning a positive drug test ahead of the UFC 200 pay-per-view (PPV) event back in July.
More on that ruling here.
Not only did “Bones” lose an “eight-figure payday” by missing his Daniel Cormier do-over in Las Vegas, he may have also cost himself $30 million throughout the course of the next 12 months.
As well as the status of best ever, according to UFC President Dana White’s comments on the Dan LeBatard show (via MMA Fighting):
"Yeah, he's definitely one of the guy's who could have gone down as one of the greatest ever. If you look at all the time he's been out, he probably would have defended the title a few times. He might be fighting at heavyweight right now, who knows, but, hey man...when you do what this guy has done, you've got to pay the price. Who knows what fights we missed or what could have been because of all this madness. It's tough to not give that to Anderson Silva. Anderson Silva was doing things at the time that other people couldn't do. He was so dominant and made it look so easy. There was a point in time when he made that 185-pound division look weak."
Not that Silva hasn’t seen his own share of problems.
Jones isn’t out of the woods just yet and is scheduled to face Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) later this month to answer for his UFC 200 shenanigans. The result of that disciplinary hearing could result in a massive fine.
One of the pound-for-pound greats with a near perfect record at 205 pounds, Jones may find it hard to keep his personal setbacks (like this and this) from overshadowing his accomplishments inside the Octagon.
I think this guy said it best.