Jon Jones is one of the biggest stars in MMA and certainly the UFC. Jones has competed in the light heavyweight for years and became the youngest champion back in March of 2011. He was 23 at the time.
Due to a variety of legal issues as well as positive tests he was stripped several times but his dominance is hard to argue with.
Jones has competed 28 times in MMA and had formally won 26 – and had even one another one that was then overturned to a no contest after a positive test and finally his one loss comes by way of DQ.
Dan Henderson believes that Jones isn’t the same as he once was before popping for PEDs. He also gave his thoughts on the UFC’s middleweight division.
Hendo was one of the legends present at Fedor Emelienanko’s sendoff into retirement at Bellator 290. He has one of the most impressive resumes in MMA history with wins over many champions. Also, he was a double champ in PRIDE and won gold in Strikeforce as well.
Hendo recently spoke to an InsideFighting:
“I don’t know. I just don’t think Jon Jones was the Jon Jones before he got tested positive a bunch of times. He’s never been the same since. We’ll See. I just think conditioning-wise, he hasn’t been the same since.” he told the reporter.
The interviewer also asked Henderson about the state of the 185-pound division:
“Some of them have some impressive qualities for sure. They’re excellent fighters. It would have been fun if I’d been able to go against somebody with their style, but not anymore.”
A PED expert discussed Jones during his 2021 appearance on the Joe Rogan experience.
“There’s a variety of different things that could be happening but ultimately for him (Jon Jones), he got it in his system, and on paper when you look at his testosterone and epitestosterone when he fought ‘DC’ (Daniel Cormier), they were so out of whack that it would not be explainable, in my opinion, by anything other than some sort of suppression of your system via the usage of something,” Derek told Rogan about Jon Jones.
“Suppression to the degree where he is literally like a female, probably not. Normally the levels would be over 10 times what he had in general. He was in the single digits for urinary testosterone which otherwise should be like 60+ or something. He was like 4 or something.“
Anthony Smith later revealed NSAC had called him in lead up to UFC 235 to inform him that Jones was failing tests:
“The commission (Nevada State Athletic Commission) called me every day to let me know he was still failing his tests. I never said anything, I let it be because I was just focused on myself and always believed that if you just focus on yourself you’re going to be that much more successful.“
Jones last competed at UFC 247 but is booked to return against Cyril Gane and make his heavyweight debut.