Jon Jones Makes First Comments Since Passing Polygraph Test To Prove Innocence

Last week, former UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones took a polygraph test to attempt to prove his innocence in his ongoing case with USADA. The embattled UFC champion has seen his share of controversy over the course of his historic career, and this is just the latest saga of what's been a rough few years. The once active and dominant champion has only seen competition four times in the past 4 years, and it's all because of his behavior outside of the cage, as well as failed drug tests. When he returned to action last July and knocked out Daniel Cormier, he regained his rightful place as the champion of the UFC's marquee light-heavyweight division. However, it was later revealed that he failed a pre-fight drug test and he was stripped from his title for the third time, and the bout's result was ruled a no-contest. The UFC's head of USADA testing Jeff Novitzky is leaning towards Jones being innocent, and recently revealed his thoughts to Joe Rogan, stating, "Generally, we don't talk about a case. So, how the process works when an athlete tests positive, USADA will notify me," as transcribed by MMAImports.com. "I will usually pick up the phone right away and call Dana and let him know, and the UFC puts out an announcement... "If the athlete chooses to talk about scenarios of what happened, they're free to do that. At that point USADA and the UFC can talk about it. So, there's been some things said in the Jon case, by Jon. "Particularly, he had two clean tests on July 7 and July 8, before his positive test on July 30, which I believe was weigh in day... This was a substance used by East Germans regularly in the late 60's, and then came into the fold a little more recently out of Russia... "Right upfront, I've said this for awhile now, it would not make sense for a UFC athlete, especially a champion contender like Jon Jones, that knew, 'I'm tested quit regularly in this program'. It would not make a lot of sense that that would be your drug of choice, if you were intentionally trying to cheat. "I think it's come out after the fact that USADA did another test on Jon a couple months after his positive test, and he was negative. So that would be indicative that the prohibited substance entered his system sometime after July 7 or 8, and it was likely a pretty small amount and it cleared his system pretty quickly. "Who knows where it plays out, but certainly on the surface of things, especially with this kind of information out there, it wouldn't indicate intentional use. Now, that could be wrong, and I don't know that definitively, but we'll see how this plays out." And while things do look like they might get resolved, to see Jon Jones return to action in 2018, it is still up in the air, and he does face a punishment of up to a 4 year suspended, or potentially even longer. Having passed his recent polygraph test, Jones remains optimistic that he'll get his name cleared, and he said as much in his first statement since last week's test. Jones, in reply to a fan on twitter, revealed his update: https://twitter.com/JonnyBones/status/956228256750960640