A POTENTIAL ANTI-DOPING violation has robbed the UFC of another eagerly-anticipated headline bout for its landmark UFC 200 event in Las Vegas on Saturday.
Daniel Cormier was due to put his UFC light-heavyweight title on the line against interim champion Jon Jones, but the rematch of their January 2015 contest — which the latter won via unanimous decision — has now been abandoned for a second time in the space of three months.
In the early hours of this morning, the UFC announced ”that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has informed Jon Jones of a potential Anti-Doping Policy violation stemming from an out-of-competition sample collection on 16 June, 2016… and therefore the fight has been removed from the fight card.”
It’s the second time a planned main event for UFC 200 has fallen through. The card was originally due to be headlined by the rematch of Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor, but the UFC opted to remove that fight from the bill back in April as a result of McGregor’s refusal to travel to Las Vegas to carry out media obligations.
The latest instalment of the Cormier-Jones rivalry was arranged instead, but a second meeting of the light-heavyweight kingpins has also collapsed. UFC 200 will now be headlined by the clash of heavyweights Brock Lesnar and Mark Hunt.
John Kavanagh — Conor McGregor’s coach — is currently in Las Vegas with McGregor ahead of tonight’s press conference to promote the Diaz-McGregor rematch, which has been rescheduled to take place at UFC 202 at the T-Mobile Arena on 20 August.
Shortly after the news of Jones’ withdrawal broke, Kavanagh took to Twitter and asked: “I wonder if there’s any regret [over] taking [Conor McGregor] off the card over a press conference now?”
Despite not being tagged in the tweet, it still came to the attention of UFC president Dana White. He was quick to dismiss any suggestion that the organisation’s decision to pull McGregor from UFC 200 has backfired, responding: “Zero.”
White and McGregor have stated previously that they’ve moved on from their UFC 200 dispute, and while it’s full-steam-ahead for the Diaz rematch in six weeks’ time, it seems clear that the wounds haven’t quite healed on either side just yet.
