Jon Jones Suspended One Year For USADA Violation

According to mmafighting.com, an independent arbitration panel handed down a one-year suspension to Jon Jones today. Jones was the first fighter to go to arbitration over a USADA suspension, and had his USADA case heard by three arbitrators from McLaren Global Sports Solutions last week. Jones will be eligible to return to the Octagon in July 2017. Jones claimed he took a contaminated sexual-performance pill and USADA has confirmed that the pill was tainted. But the arbitrators said in their decision that Jones didn’t do his due diligence in determining whether or not what he was using was within the confines of the UFC’s anti-doping policy and the WADA Code. This was because the only questions Jones asked about the particular tablet was toward the teammate who gave it to him and whether or not it was effective from a sexual-performance standpoint.

The arbitrators stated that, “His degree of fault in fact verged on the reckless.” Jones tested positive for two banned substances, clomiphene and Letrozol during an out-of-competition drug test prior to UFC 200 in July.