Jon Jones battled tears as he appeared in front of the media this afternoon and apologised to Daniel Cormier after failing a drugs test which rules him out of UFC 200 this Saturday.
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Brock Lesnar’s heavyweight bout with Mark Hunt is UFC 200’s new main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Jones and his manager, Malki Kawa, confirmed Thursday that a banned substance was found in a sample Jones provided on June 16 but did not specify what it was.
“Like I said, it’s unfortunate, it’s unprofessional, it’s just the way it is”, Lesnar re-iterated.
Silva and Cormier will have a three-round, non-title bout in the third slot on the five-fight pay-per-view card, UFC President Dana White said. “At this point, we’re not going to get into details of the notice we got, simply because obviously we’re going to do what we have to do to fight this”. Cormier won the vacated light heavyweight title during Jones’ suspension, but acknowledged his reign wouldn’t be real until he beat Jones in the cage.
Jones has been flagged for taking metabolites – through supplements that improves metabolism – and he admitted he cannot even pronounce the substance he has been linked with taking.
“”Even though it may seem that I’m broken up, up here, I’m not broken.””. It really sucks. It really hurts, a lot.
Jones (22-1) briefly left the stage at his news conference after being overcome with emotion.
Jones talked about moving and trying to find a positive – something he’s done on many occasions over the last few years.
According to Kawa, Jones has already requested that USADA analyze the B-sample of the positive test. Kawa was hopeful that those results could be made available as early as Thursday evening, although he acknowledged that the chances of a B-sample immediately clearing Jones’ name “are very slim”.
“I want to leave my legacy in a healthy spot”, Jones said.
Jones insisted there had been no new supplements introduced during his training regime for the Cormier fight.
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White said veteran Dan Henderson and UFC 200 fighter Gegard Mousasi also volunteered to fight Cormier. “This fight meant a lot to him”, Jones said. “I know some good will come from this, but right now it’s hard to see it”. “I think it’s going to be interesting”. I’m optimistic. But man, at the end of the day, I’m a fighter.
