LAST UPDATE | Sep 14th 2017, 8:39 AM
DANIEL CORMIER HAS been reinstated as the UFC’s light-heavyweight champion following the decision to overturn his defeat to Jon Jones at UFC 214.
Jones regained the 205lbs title by defeating Cormier via third-round TKO in Los Angeles on 29 July, but the result will now go down in the record books as a ‘no contest’, the California State Athletic Commission confirmed to MMAFighting.com.
Speaking on UFC Tonight on Wednesday, Cormier said:
Dana White called me today and said, ‘If it’s a no contest, then the fight didn’t happen. If one of you guys had missed weight, he would have won the fight, but you still would have kept the belt.’ He said, ‘Because of that, the championship is getting returned to you.’”
It emerged last month that Jones, 30, had been flagged for a potential anti-doping violation due to the presence of the banned steroid turinabol in a test, which took place the day before the fight — in the aftermath of the weigh-ins.
The B sample from Jones’ test came back positive on Tuesday but his team has previously denied that he intentionally took any prohibited substance.
In July 2016, Jones was withdrawn from a fight with Cormier on the eve of UFC 200 after testing positive for two banned substances, for which he received a one-year suspension.
As a repeat offender, he could now be banned for up to four years.