I’m sure UFC President Dana White didn’t mean for his statement to read like he wishes addiction on his best fighter, Jon Jones, but his words do leave room for interpretation.
“Everything happens for a reason. It’s a great thing this happened. It’s a great thing this guy made a mistake. Who would have known? We would never know. We’ll get him the help that he needs.”
It sounds as though he meant that the positive test was a good thing because of without it we would’ve never known Jones had a problem (Even though his drug use was whispered in MMA circles for years). Dana obviously wasn’t privies to those circles.
“I was shocked, obviously, and this is one of those situations where it’s so different than if a guy gets busted for performance-enhancing drugs,” White said. “You worry about the person first, you know? You forget about the fighting and the work side of it. You worry about the person, Jon Jones as a person. He got checked into rehab, they’re going to evaluate him and then we’ll go from there.”
He also addressed what this will do to Jones’ image:
“If you look at how shocked everybody was by this, nothing you saw in Jon Jones leading up to that fight would make you think that he used drugs,” White said. “In a situation like this the last thing you worry about is his image right now. You worry about getting the guy healthy, he’ll come back, and whether you like him or you don’t like him, he’s the baddest dude in the world. He’s the pound-for-pound best guy in the world. What’s even crazier is you do these tests to look for performance-enhancing drugs, the stuff he was doing, it hurts you. It doesn’t help you in any way, it actually hurts you. So imagine how good this guy’s going to be when he gets straight.”
View the Entire Dana White Interview Below:
