'Never took steroids' ... Jon Jones responds to UFC retirement backlash

Jon Jones responds to Tom Aspinall blasting MMA cheaters

Speaking to Ariel Helwani, Aspinall remarked, "If your job is to hurt another person... Which could potentially redirect the rest of their entire life past fighting, you're an absolute piece of s---. You should never be able to fight again.

". . . It's disgusting and anybody who's caught doing any kind of [performance enhancing drugs]... You're a pretty sick individual in my opinion."

It didn't take long for Jones to reply in a comment on Instagram. Courtesy of Dovy on X.

"You silly gooses know, I never took steroids," Jones said. "The evidence is all there. Hence why I was able to fight again and the rules have changed for everyone across all sports. Call me the game changer."

Did Jon Jones take steroids?

Of Jones' plethora of failed tests, not all were steroid related. His TKO win against Daniel Cormier at UFC 214 was overturned after Jones tested positive for the anabolic steroid Turinabol. Jones was stripped of his title and handed a suspension.

His comeback rematch against Alexander Gustafsson was moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles for licensing reasons after Jones tested for a trace amount of Turinabol. He tested positive again at the weigh-ins, but the California Commission let him fight because they had "no grounds to charge somebody twice for the same violation."

This 'trace amount' was later explained as a picogram, or a trillionth of a gram. As such, it was treated as a residual 'pulse' from his initial suspension at UFC 214.

Otherwise, Jones has popped for cocaine and erectile dysfunction medication. Ultimately, 'Bones' can escape some of these violations on a technicality, but his original suspension for Turinabol is irrefutable.

His mental gymnastics were on display in an interview with BBC Sports in 2023, where he explained how USADA rule changes clear him of being a cheat, in retrospect.

"USADA has changed some of the rules regarding picogram levels and what's allowed, and I've come to find out that all my findings were under the new legal limit, meaning I would have been cleared from every test I've ever taken,"