Jon Jones Has Been Pulled From UFC 200 And Now Mark Hunt And Brock Lesnar Are Headlining

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Jon Jones has been pulled from UFC 200 due to a potential doping violation. With only days until the UFC’s biggest card ever was scheduled to go down, the latest dramatic chapter in Jon Jones’ GOAT career has shaken up the main event and leaves multiple legacies in limbo. According to MMA Fighting, Jones’ positive sample came from an out-of-competition test on June 16th.  Jones, who has been jovial on UFC Embedded and throughout the last few days with the press, has yet to speak publicly on this fallout.

So our new main event is Brock Lesnar vs. Mark Hunt (which is above two title fights).

Dana White immediately went live with a press conference and explained what he knew, which wasn’t much outside of Jones’ failed USADA test, and said Jones could possibly be looking at two years away from the sport, further cementing Jones as MMA’s Mike Tyson.

Dana White was distraught at the presser, explaining what he could.

“This sucks. I don’t know what to say. This sucks. It’s unfortunate.”

“That’s all I know. That’s all I know and … y’know, obviously he’s got the chance to prove himself innocent before being called guilty. But if it’s true, super, super disappointing.”

“This is devastating to Daniel Cormier, not only mentally and physically, he just went through a camp, and financially. This PPV was trending to be massive and he shares in that revenue so it’s devastating to him in every way it could possibly be.”

And when asked whether he would possibly be looking at rebooking Jones vs. Cormier for a fifth time, White said, “I don’t know, we’ll see how this thing goes down. Jones could get two years for this. We’ll see.”

And regarding a potential contender for Cormier’s title:

“We’ll have to see who wants the fight, who steps forward and realistically how good of a fight we think it’d be. This is the best card ever. Rather than having Cormier fighting someone who absolutely positively should not be fighting him? I’d rather have him not fight.”

So Daniel Cormier will not be fighting anyone on Saturday, which means his last two scheduled bouts with Jones haven’t gone down as scheduled, and three out of their four fights never came to fruition.

And think of the other Jon Jones …

UFC later released an official statement on the decision, citing that there was not enough time for review of the USADA findings prior to UFC 200. They are also offering ticket refunds for the event.

The UFC organization was notified tonight 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 June 16, 2016.

USADA, the independent administrator of the UFC Anti-Doping Policy, will handle the results management and appropriate adjudication of this case. It is important to note that, under the UFC Anti-Doping Policy, there is a full fair legal review process that is afforded to all athletes before any sanctions are imposed.

However, because Jones was scheduled to compete against Daniel Cormier this coming Saturday, July 9 in Las Vegas, there is insufficient time for a full review before the scheduled bout and therefore the fight has been removed from the fight card. As a result, the three-round heavyweight bout between Brock Lesnar and Mark Hunt will become the UFC 200 main event.

Consistent with all previous potential anti-doping violations, additional information or UFC statements will be provided at the appropriate time as the process moves forward.

Ticket refunds available upon request at primary point of purchase.