For the third year in a row, Jon Jones has been stripped of a UFC title.
And for the third year in a row, Daniel Cormier is the undisputed UFC light heavyweight champion.
On Wednesday, the California State Athletic Commission confirmed that the result of UFC 214’s headliner between Jones and Cormier had been overturned to a No Contest. The announcement was made one day after the B sample from Jones’ failed drug test came back confirming that he had the steroid Turinabol in his system on fight night.
Bruce Buffer announced Jones as the winner via KO inside the Octagon and the coveted golden strap was wrapped around his waist. That title has been revoked and Cormier has been reinstated as champion.
Decisions https://t.co/M45UCdnWYL
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) September 13, 2017
Cormier appeared on UFC Tonight shortly after the announcement was made that he was champion again. Initially, he was in two minds about accepting the belt, but UFC president Dana White convinced him it was the right thing to do.
“I talked to Andy Foster (Executive Director of the California State Atheltic Commission) and I was like, ‘Man, you know, I lost. I lost the fight.’ As a competitor, that’s how I felt. Then Dana White called me today and he said, ‘If it’s a No Contest, then the fight didn’t happen.’
“He said, ‘If one of you guys would have missed weight (and) he would have won the fight, you still would have kept the belt. He said, ‘because of that the championship is getting returned to you, the fight is a No Contest. If he cheated, he could not have fought and cheated and still won the fight.”
He is aware that not everyone will accept him being reinstated as champion with open arms. Some may argue that he should have fought for a vacant title in order to get it back, but that move wouldn’t be very smart from a financial perspective.
“Now people will say stuff like, ‘You got handed the belt.’ He cheated, and the reality is for me to say, ‘I don’t want this title,’ when I was going to fight in a championship fight anyways. Financially, it’s just a big difference  if I don’t fight as the champion as opposed to fighting for a vacant title. I’m taking the belt.”
No complaints. Let the champ heal up and line up another challenger. This division needs to move on.
