They tried to make Jon Jones stay in rehab. But he said “no, no, no.”
The UFC light-heavyweight champion exited a drug rehabilitation facility after just a night’s stay. A Jones sample submitted in early December tested positive for cocaine prior to Christmas. After the champion’s winning performance against Daniel Cormier at UFC 182, the promotion announced that their marquee fighter had popped a positive on a drug test.
“I am proud of Jon Jones for making the decision to enter a drug treatment facility,” UFC President Dana White maintained then in a statement. “I’m confident that he’ll emerge from this program like the champion he truly is.”
He emerged from the facility in time for the AFC championship game, which pits older brother Arthur of the Colts against younger brother Chandler of the Patriots. Jones will travel to Massachusetts for the game but not, significantly, for UFC Fight Night, which takes place 20 miles north of Foxboro at the very same time. Jones may have time to watch the Conor McGregor-Dennis Siver main event and the Donald Cerrone-Benson Henderson co-feature live should he escape Route 1 with time to spare.
Jones’s mother explained on a local news broadcast that Jones’s test came a day after her son hung out with some late-night friends and the use of narcotics represented poor judgment and not a habit.
“I’m glad that this happened to Jon, this stopped him in his tracks, this let him know that he may need to change some friends because everyone is not for you for the best,” Camille Jones told Binghamton, New York’s WBMG. “So this is a good thing as far as our family is concerned, so we weren’t upset. Me and my husband considered it a blessing from God that our child was able to be helped and know that he needed to stop and know that he needed the assistance to stop before it came to something worse.”
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