UFC’s Jeff Novitzky Does Not Believe Jon Jones Intentionally Used Steroids

During a recent edition on Joe Rogan’s JRE podcast, UFC VP of Athlete Health and Performance Jeff Novitzky spoke at length regarding the situation of former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones’ latest alleged drug test failure after his rematch last year with Daniel Cormier, where he apparently failed a pre-fight drug test for steroids. Below are some highlights from the show (transcript h/t MMAjunkie). The situation regarding Jones’ punishment and legal process is still ongoing.

Novitzky on how he thinks a four-year sanction might not apply to Jon Jones: “I don’t necessarily think that we put up a four-year sanction for a second-term offense when the first-term offense was shown that that person didn’t cheat intentionally – just operated with careless disregard.”

Novitzky on why he believes Jones didn’t intentionally use steroids: “It would not make a lot of sense for an individual, a UFC athlete, especially a championship contender like Jon Jones who knew, ‘I’m tested quite regularly in this program’ – it would not make a lot of sense that that would be your drug of choice if you’re trying to cheat. I think it’s come out after the fact that USADA did another test on Jon a month or two months after his positive test, and he was negative. So that would be indicative that the prohibited substance entered his system sometime after July 7th or 8th, and that was likely a pretty small amount and that cleared his system pretty quickly.”

Novitzky on why he thinks the testing doesn’t indicate intentional use: “Again, who knows where it plays out? But on the surface of things, at this point in the game with that type of information out there, it wouldn’t indicate intentional use. That could be wrong. I don’t know that definitively, and we’ll see how this plays out.”