OPINION: Don’t Jump To Conclusions On Jon ‘Bones’ Jones

He has likely never felt lower.

At the beginning of the week, stories circulating everywhere were calling UFC 200 Jon “Bones” Jones last shot at redemption.

Now it appears Jones will need more redeeming.

OPINION: Don’t Jump To Conclusions On Jon ‘Bones’ Jones

Jones was removed from the UFC 200 fight card by Dana White Wednesday after the United States Anti-Doping Agency informed the UFC president that Jones tested positive for a banned substance in a pre-fight screening, back on June 16.

White was floored by the news.

“I was at dinner too when I got the call and I literally like ‘Jesus Christ I must have jinxed myself,'” White told reporters at a Wednesday evening press conference, “Because I kept going, ‘Everything is going so smooth, everything is going so smooth.’ And nobody had been hurt, you know, everybody was healthy. So uh, yeah, this was a pretty brutal phone call.”

UFC’s anti-doping policy permits an athlete who has been flagged for a positive test to submit a “b-sample” to be tested to determine if there are any incongruities.

JONES APOLOGIZES TO DANIEL CORMIER FOR FAILED TEST

But don’t bury “Bones” Jones just yet.

Yes, he has not exactly been a model citizen over the last couple of years, but what he has been, above anything else in his entire career, is a staunch critic of performance enhancing drugs.

“I have never, ever taken any kind of performance enhancing drug,” Jones said back in January 2015. “Ever.”

For whatever reason, and I’m sure there are several, Jones’ June test popped for banned substances, leading many to write him off, just as they had with his previous stumbles.

Jones is not a saint, he is human.

He, like many of us, likes to have a good time. And he has also made some really immature decisions.

But that doesn’t mean he is a cheater.

Misguided? Maybe. But not a cheater.

Why would a guy who has been so outspoken against PEDs even think of using any? It just doesn’t make sense.

That is not to say he didn’t have traces of whatever substance(s) in his system, just that he may not have known they were there.

I know, I know, “Kev please, not the ‘I never knowingly took this’ excuse.”

I hated it when Barry Bonds used it too. But there is some evidence to support that rationale for Jones.

Aside from his penchant for trashing PEDs and PED-users, Jones spent the last week discussing how great this could all be if he were able to climb back to the top.

“I want to show the world that you can be down, but never out,” Jones told ESPN’s Arash Markazi last week in Los Angeles. “I want to be one of the few stories you hear where I was ruining things but ultimately turned things around and became a hero. That’s my vision for the way my story is going to play out.”

Does that sound like a guy who would risk losing everything, again, for using a banned substance?

I don’t think so.

Along with the constant reminders of his “redemption story” in the lead-up to Wednesday’s bombshell, MMA fans also learned a great deal about Jones’ public relations team and how they helped him get back on track.

First it was a DUI in upstate New York in 2012, next the positive test for cocaine metabolites in a screening prior to his first bout with Daniel Cormier, a victory for Jones. Then, in 2015 the hit-and-run incident in New Mexico that resulted in White stripping him of the light heavyweight belt Jones had defended eight consecutive times.

And now, the USADA out-of-competition test that yielded positive results for banned substances.

Again, he is no saint.

But the narrative throughout the opening of the week was about the “new” Jon Jones and the PR team that got him back on track.

JONES AND CORMIER FACE-OFF IN UFC 200 PRESS CONFERENCE

“I’ve been teaching him how to handle strenuous situations in front of the camera,” Denise White, Jones’ PR point-woman told Markazi.

White also hinted at another possible reason for Jones failed test, a week before the results were known.

“Jon had a bad issue with anxiety and still does,” White went on to say. “When I first started working with him, he was so nervous, but now it’s a cakewalk for him. He’s so good at it.”

I’m not a doctor, but isn’t it possible that Jones was taking some sort of medication for this anxiety?

Isn’t it also plausible that that medication could have contained a banned substance that Jones would be ingesting without knowing?

“You know, the whole situation, it really sucks, it really sucks. It really hurts a lot,” Jones said in a tearful press conference on Thursday. “Supposedly they found something in one of my samples that, I have no clue what it is, I don’t even know how to pronounce it.”

Watch the video of Jones press conference and tell me you don’t think he’s being honest.

Jones was either completely caught off-guard by the positive test, or he has a career in Hollywood.

“I’ve been extremely outspoken against any type of performance enhancers, ” Jones said. “I’m still, to this day, extremely against performance enhancers.”

Not exactly what you would expect to hear from a cheater huh?

Maybe because Jones is not a cheater. Maybe he is selfish and immature, but perhaps he is also anxious and troubled.

These traits don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

A cheater knowingly breaks the rules. And given all the information we have to date, I can’t call Jones a cheater.

Not because he spoke against PEDs, or because he may be taking medication for anxiety.

Who would have the stones cry in front of millions of people and claim you don’t know how this happened?

Look, it is 100 percent his fault if something was in his system. And he should serve the full suspension.

But that still doesn’t make him a cheater.

“It sucks,” Jones told reporters, struggling to contain his emotions. “Because you know, being labeled as someone who would ever cheat, it just hurts me more than, hurts me more than anything else I’ve ever been through in my career.”

And he’s been through a lot. So why bother say it if he knew he was cheating the whole time?