“Jon Jones, get your shit together!” yelled an emotional Daniel Cormier after claiming the vacant UFC light heavyweight title last May.
And, given the information we have as of July 7, 2016, it doesn’t seem like Jon Jones heeded his rival’s advice.
BREAKING: Jon Jones has been removed from UFC 200 card for potential doping violation https://t.co/OhLVAPztZ4
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 7, 2016
Jones was pulled from the main event of UFC 200 after being flagged by USADA for a potential doping violation from a test administered on June 16.
He was expected to face ‘DC’ in a rematch to unify the light heavyweight title this weekend but Jones was removed from the card shortly after a pre-fight press conference on Wednesday.
In the wake of USADA’s statement on the matter, a visibly crestfallen Cormier told the media in Las Vegas of his reaction to the news.
“Very disappointed,” Cormier said at a press conference alongside UFC president Dana White. “I’ve worked really hard to prepare for this. You know you take care of what you can take care of and that’s what I did. More than anything, just really disappointed.”
As disappointed as the reigning UFC light heavyweight champion is, Cormier insisted that he is willing to grant Jones the process of a proper appeal and investigation but he was full of praise for the zero tolerance policy recently adopted by his employer.
“I’m not a guy that really likes to pile onto somebody. Doesn’t really matter who it is. USADA changes a lot of things,” Cormier said. “They are a great organisation that’s going to clean up our sport. I see people say things ‘does USADA want this?’. The UFC, they did this. They didn’t have to do this. They decided to clean up the sport so you’re going to have casualties.
“Jon deserves due process, but if this true, if a guy that’s going to do something that affects you negatively a month before your fight, there’s a pretty good chance that that person will do things to actually enhance them, too. Take that for what it is.”
Having put himself through the most committed training camp of his career, Cormier is open to accepting a replacement fight and is willing to take on a small-sized heavyweight in an attempt to translate his work over the past months into revenue.
“I’ve trained hard and long and if anybody would fight, I would fight,” Cormier said. “I mean why not? But I understand the difficult task to get somebody to fight me on two days’ (notice). Obviously, I’m willing to fight up, put on some weight — 225, 220, I’ll fight them. It doesn’t matter. I just can’t fight a really big guy right now because I’ve been kind of shrinking my body to make 205, but if it doesn’t make sense for the organisation or me, then it doesn’t make sense.”
