Jon Jones tests positive for trace amount of Turinabol, UFC 232 moved to California one week out

Bloodyelow.com

Jon Jones has tested positive for Turinabol again, but there are apparently extenuating circumstances. Jones was set to meet Alexander Gustafsson in the UFC 232 headliner in Las Vegas next Saturday. The event and fight will still happen, but they will take place in California instead.

Here’s how it all breaks down.

According to a report by MMA Junkie (which was corroborated by ESPN’s Brett Okamoto), Jones tested positive for a trace amount of DHCMT, also known as Turinabol, earlier this month. USADA head Jeff Novitzky called this a “pulsing” effect, basically stating that it was still in his system from his 2017 positive test that netted him a 15-month suspension. It is not a new ingestion, and it was a pictogram – basically an extremely tiny amount. So he has not violated USADA rules.

Nevada didn’t feel like they had the proper time to do a thorough investigation into this though, and the won’t license Jones for December 29th. So, on less than a week of notice, the UFC is moving the event to California due to the fact that the California commission will license Jones for the fight.

UFC president Dana White issued a statement regarding Jones to MMA Junkie:

“I haven’t heard anything negative about Jon Jones leading up to this fight – nothing,” White said. “He was willing to jump on a plane yesterday and go take a drug test – like, immediately. If I want to plan a PR for Jon Jones in two months, try pulling that together. It’s tough to get Jon Jones. He’s willing to do anything. So, I believe that Jon Jones is clean. He’s in fight shape, and I believe that he’s been doing the right thing.”

…

“We wouldn’t do it,” White said. “We’d pull the fight, and the (Cris Cyborg vs. Amanda Nunes title fight) would be the main event and the fight would roll. That’s it. We’d roll on. Jones would either go away forever, or – you know how I am … If these guys even doubted that something bad happened here and he was wrong or whatever, the fight’s off. We’d pull the fight. Jones didn’t do anything wrong here. All the biggest experts, the smartest people in the world that deal with this are saying that he did not cheat, he didn’t do anything. So how do we not do this fight?”

Nevada will conduct their own investigation, and Jones has agreed to attend a hearing there in January. UFC 232 will now go down in The Forum in Inglewood. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday, and people holding tickets for the Vegas event can get a full refund.