Jon Jones’ UFC return has been mired in controversy even before a punch has been thrown but, on Saturday, the greatest light heavyweight of all time intends to remind us why no man has ever been able to defeat him inside a cage.
It says something about Jon Jones’ dominance throughout his UFC run that the only fighter who has been able to seize a championship belt from his waist has been himself.
Jones, arguably the most naturally talented fighter in mixed martial arts history, has been practically invincible inside the UFC’s Octagon but very, very fallible outside of it and his woes began not long after his coronation as the greatest light heavyweight in the world when, a year or so after defeating Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua for the UFC’s 205lb title, Jones wrapped his Bentley – a gift from the UFC – around a pole.
It wasn’t to be an isolated incident. Further controversies would follow: the Daniel Cormier media day brawl, the hit-and-run of a pregnant woman’s car which would force the UFC to strip him of his title. Then came the drug test failures.
Several irregularities have been noted in Jones’ United States Anti-Doping Agency (UASDA) tests which would once again force him to hand over the light heavyweight title, this time after knocking out rival Daniel Cormier at UFC 200 in the summer of 2016.
READ MORE: Jon ‘Bones’ Jones: Recapping the UFC 232 star’s most controversial moments
With the suspensions that followed all now served, it was announced that Jones would rematch Alexander Gustafsson for the (soon to be) vacant light heavyweight title in a do-over of their instant classic, razor’s-edge fistfight of 2013.
But this wouldn’t be a Jon Jones fight without something going off the rails. It was announced in recent days that a trace amount of the anabolic steroid turinabol had been discovered in Jones’ system after he provided a sample in early December, which led to the Nevada State Athletic Commission determining that they couldn’t allow the Gustafsson fight to take place within their jurisdiction.
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Therefore, the unusual decision was made by UFC officials to move to fight on short notice from Las Vegas to Inglewood, California about four hours’ drive down the road after drug-testing experts explained that the spike in Jones’ test sample wasn’t a new ingestion but rather a ‘pulse’ effect from a previous ingestion which, at the time, was explained by Jones as having come from a contaminated supplement.
This despite Jones have tested positive for three different banned substances (not including a positive test for cocaine) since 2016.
Throughout all of his run-ins with the anti-doping authorities Jones’ has strenuously protested his innocence, saying that his reputation as a ‘cheater’ is undeserved.
From @JonnyBones: “I know I’ll never quite get a fresh, clean start. Some people will just hate you forever, and for those types of people, you just feel sorry for them …
— Lance Pugmire (@latimespugmire) December 27, 2018
Now, with these hurdles all but fully negotiated, all of his bans served and his status as an active fighter on the UFC roster restored, Jones will face a completely different test of his character on Saturday night.
Five years ago, Alexander Gustafsson was considered by most as just the ‘next guy in line’ to challenge Jones for his light heavyweight title. What followed was the toughest 25 minutes of Jon Jones’ professional career.
The Swede, not particularly known for his grappling prowess, became the first fighter to take Jon Jones down and, save for a late rally by the American, came incredibly close to being the first fighter to score a conventional win against him.
This fight, Jones later admitted, was in the midst of a period of his life where he wasn’t training effectively and was drinking and taking recreational drugs just days before the bout.
Now, some five years later, this same fighter awaits Jones in the cage on Saturday as another litmus test of not just his capacity for athletic excellence but also as to the seriousness in which he is approaching his own fight career.
Gustafsson is taller than Jones and has a similarly lengthy reach, instantly negating the ‘stay out of distance’ tactic Jones employed so successfully on two occasions versus Daniel Cormier, a factor which visibly affected Jones’ in their first battle and will be in action again this Saturday.
As ever though, the spotlight this weekend will be fixed on Jon Jones, the man who can’t avoid controversy. He is the one facing the pressure of regaining the title that he never lost in the cage. He is the one who has accusations of being a drug cheat hanging over his head and he is the one who must address all of these questions at UFC 232.
And one suspects that this is exactly how Alexander Gustafsson wants it.
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