Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones could be facing a potential four years suspension after a failed drug test in line with UFC 214.
Coach Mike Winklejohn has been at the side of Jones for the majority of his professional MMA career, but he even doubts whether Jones would fight again after serving such a long potential suspension.
“If it’s a four-year thing, I think it could be just that kind of devastation (that stops Jon from coming back), and which like I said, it’s not fair, you know?” Winkeljohn told Submission Radio. “He messed up in that maybe he took something that someone said was fine, but he’s not doing it thinking. I’m taking steroids or something,” you know, and that’s the part that’s terrible, he’d be devastated at four years. Who knows, you know? Just, that’s just a long time to just spiral downhill, where bad things can happen. So that one scares me. If it’s a year (suspension) Jon Jones will come back and dominate the world again, I do believe.”
No punishments have been handed out by USADA yet, other than a provincial suspension after the drug test failure was announced.
Jones has maintained his innocence since the announcement and Winklejohn says that supplement manufacturers have put different kinds of substances in their products to make sales.
“Supplement companies are notorious for it if you go back and start reading some papers on them, and it’s not right. This is not right when they do those type of things just to sell products,” says Winklejohn.
If Jones doesn’t return to action after the potential suspension, then UFC 214 would be the final time he competes in the Octagon.
