UFC President Dana White has labelled Jon Jones the company's "biggest screw-up ever" and stripped the interim light-heavyweight champion of his title after an anti-doping violation.
Jones was pulled from his UFC 200 main event title unification fight with Daniel Cormier in July after testing positive for two banned substances; hydroxyclomiphene and letrozole.
In a statement the youngest ever champion in UFC history admitted he was happy not to be labelled a drug cheat, claiming that the positive test came as a result of a contaminated pill used to enhance his sexual performance.
Jones has been banned for one year, with the sanction imposed by USADA effective since July of this year.
"Jon Jones has blown it in every way, shape and form a guy with that much talent can blow it," White told ESPN. "Greatest talent ever and the biggest screw-up ever.
In 2015, the UFC stripped Jones light-heavyweight title after he was arrested for a hit-and-run charge. He became the first fighter to ever be stripped of a UFC title for disciplinary reasons. He now becomes the only champion to ever be stripped twice.
Not only the impact on his reputation and prestige, the 29-year-old missed out on a massive payday after being pulled from the UFC's historic card.
"He's lost a lot of money, he left a lot of money on the table," White told the Dan LeBatard Show this week. "I'll tell you this too — in the history of combat sports, nobody's ever taken this much time off and come back and looked like the did when they were younger, even (Muhammad) Ali. So it's going to be interesting.
"Who knows [how much he lost]? If he moved up to heavyweight and fought for the heavyweight championship, it could have been massive. It could be anywhere from $15 to $20 million.
"He'd definitely one of the guys who could have gone down as one of the greatest ever. If you look at all the time he's been out, he probably would have defended the title a few times. He might even be fighting at heavyweight right now. Who knows. When you do what this guy has done, you've got to pay the price.
"I think because everyone looks at Jon Jones as the guy who's probably the best to ever do it. The potential that he had. Who knows what fights we missed or what could have been because of all this madness."
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