During fight week of UFC 232, Michael Bisping raised a few queries over the status of Jon Jones as a clean athlete — something that reportedly irked the newly re-crowned UFC light heavyweight champion of the world.
With the fact Jones had tiny amounts if Turinabol in his system — something USADA ruled as being left over from his previous ingestion a year prior — Bisping wondered if Jones could potentially fail his post-fight drug test, meaning Alexander Gustafsson could be overturned.
In the end, Jones’ post-fight tests came back clean, and the issue, at least for now, appears to be on the back burner.
“Jon Jones passed his post-fight drug test, which was the question that I asked him which pissed him off which led to him being kind of annoyed with me on the post-fight show,” Bisping said, speaking on his Believe You Me podcast. “I don’t want to turn this into Michael Bisping shitting on Jon Jones because he’s a legendary fighter – he was the youngest ever champion in the UFC. But to me – and I don’t know the science, I’m speaking purely from the standpoint that this is a fair question to ask – the narrative as to why he failed the drug test and failed multiple drug tests in August, September, and December, is that these metabolites from the turinabol were in his system from years ago and they could still be there for years and then all of a sudden he tests positive and then it’s brought to the forefront — Devil’s advocate, you would have to be fucking stupid to continue microdosing — then all of a sudden, voila, the next time he gets tested it is out of his system. I don’t know. I’m not saying that is the reality, I’m just saying that is the first thing that I thought and I’d be lying if I didn’t say so.
“That was the narrative going into this fight: ‘Listen, this is remnants, it was leftover from whenever it was.’ But the point of the matter is that Jeff Novitzky was saying, everyone was saying this could be in his system for a long, long time and then, lo and behold, he tests clean.”
But according the former UFC middleweight champion, Bisping is actually glad Jones has come through his latest test with no controversy, and instead wishes it to be the same going forward.
“I’m glad he tested clean, I really am,” Bisping said. “I hope he continues to do so. He’s a great talent, he’s a great fighter, and I’m glad Jon Jones is back. I’m glad anytime fighters come back.
“I hope he stays clean. I don’t hope he passes his tests and gets away with it. I hope he stays clean. They’re two very different things. I don’t hope he gets away with it. I hope he’s competing on a level playing field and we get to see the best Jon Jones that we can.”
