Jon Jones Comments On Turning Down VADA

Jon Jones will return to fighting when he meets Alexander Gustafsson in the main event of December 29’s UFC 232 from Las Vegas. However, he won’t be undergoing voluntary testing before he does. Recently, Jones opened up on turning down VADA.

MMA’s most controversial former champion and his team revealed this week that they would not accept a request to undergo the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA) program. Following his recent USADA suspension, Jones was relicensed by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) after paying a fine and agreeing to community service.

But the commission also asked him to do something extra and participate in VADA. The cost for the voluntary testing was to come out of his fine. Jones agreed “in principle” at first, but his legal team ultimately decided to deny that request. Jones vaguely spoke up on the situation during the UFC 232 media conference call via MMA Fighting, noting he couldn’t say much and was focused solely on the fight:

“I was advised not to get into it too much,” Jones said. “It’s all a pretty new conversation. It’s something that I haven’t put too much energy into. Like every ounce of my body, my spirit, my mind has been dominated with the next fight, actually finishing the fight. I don’t want to speak out of turn when it comes to these companies. These are pretty serious companies. I want to get my mind around the whole situation before I speak more on it. So I’m just not gonna comment too much on it.”

Unable To Answer Everything

‘Bones’ lawyer Howard Jacobs insisted he didn’t straight refuse the request, he just didn’t have enough time to be fully informed about VADA:

“It’s complicated,” Jacobs said. “To say refused is the wrong word. There were issues with the proposal. We asked questions and were unable to fully resolve it.”

Finally, Jones said he just didn’t have enough time to consider VADA or what it involved. Bearing that in mind, he said he couldn’t answer questions about it until after UFC 232:

“This was just kind of thrown at me recently,” Jones said of the VADA proposal. “I hadn’t spent any time or any of my energy on it. I haven’t even put much thought into it right now. And I realize it’s a very serious deal. And right now, I have a fight coming up. One thing at a time. I can answer the questions after the fight.”