It seems the truth behind the infamous allegations that Jon Jones hid under a cage from a drug test may have finally been revealed.
According to the long-told tale, which Deadspin mentioned in 2015 and Chael Sonnen later resurfaced in an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” when drug testers visited Jones at Jackson Wink MMA gym in New Mexico ahead of his first meeting with Daniel Cormier in 2015, “Bones” hid under the cage to avoid submitting a specimen. The rumor, which pre-dates the UFC’s current partnership with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, has been used over the years as a sort of circumstantial evidence that Jones was using performance-enhancing drugs at the time.
Thursday evening, during his ongoing Twitter spat with UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, Jones seemed to confirm the story, though he clarified that his reasoning for avoiding Nevada Athletic Commission officials was because he had recently smoked marijuana.
Brother explain your titty
I was hiding from Nevada state Athletic Commission, not USADA and that was years ago.. I had just smoked a blunt and was afraid I would fail my test for weed
that’s the actual truth
Now everyone knows everyone
— BONY (@JonnyBones) October 9, 2020
“Brother explain your titty
I was hiding from Nevada state Athletic Commission, not USADA and that was years ago.. I had just smoked a blunt and was afraid I would fail my test for weed
that’s the actual truth
Now everyone knows everyone.”
Less than a week after defeating Cormier via unanimous decision at UFC 182 in January 2015, MMA Junkie reported that Jones tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine in the weeks before the bout and opted to enter rehab, though he would leave the program after just one day.
Three months later, more trouble ensued when Jones was arrested following a hit-and-run accident in Albuquerque that left a pregnant woman with a broken arm. As a result, he was stripped of the UFC light heavyweight title.
Jones’ troubling history didn’t end there, and he was involved in a handful of other controversial incidents in the following years, including additional failed drug screens – most recently for the steroid Turinabol where his knockout win over Cormier at UFC 214 in 2017 was ruled a no-contest and he was stripped of his belt once again, as well as for clomiphene, a banned anti-estrogenic substance, traces of letrozole, an aromatase inhibitor, prior to a planned appearance at UFC 200 in 2016.
Additionally, UFC 232 in December 2018 was moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after noted irregularities in a pre-fight drug screen that were later attributed to “pulsing” effects from his prior use of Turinabol.