Rankings, The Title and the Consequences of Jon Jones Failing His Drug Test

Drink your orange juice, fix some toast, plan something nice for yourself today. Chances are, you’re waking up and either just hearing the news, or realizing you didn’t have a nightmare that Jon Jones was potentially flagged for an anabolic steroid last night. He still has his day in court, but right now it’s as good as true and far too real. After just getting him back, the new undisputed UFC light heavyweight champ and “Greatest of all Time” candidate will probably be taken away from us again. Unfortunately, emotional pains aren’t the only consequences that result from this anti-doping violation. It gets a lot worse.

List of potential consequences Jon Jones could face if 2nd USADA doping violation is held up pic.twitter.com/oTDL1wfoEm

— Erik Magraken (@erikmagraken) August 23, 2017

Jon Jones is so good that the only person that can beat him is himself. If that’s truly the case, then he’s on one helluva losing streak. He’ll lose money, either from fines or from his suspension not allowing him to compete. His most dominant victory since his 2013 fight with Chael Sonnen could be wiped from his record. Speaking of Daniel Cormier, he could soon be light heavyweight champion once again. This is so terrible that even all of those punishments above doesn’t cover all of it. What about the shift in the UFC’s rankings?

https://twitter.com/OfficialDurkin/status/900162834277040128

While the website hasn’t changed — it actually still lists Jon Jones at the top of the pound-for-pound list — but sooner or later everyone is going to move up a spot or two. It seems like just a blink in time that Jones came back and pushed everyone down, now everyone is coming back up. The combat universe balancing itself. Which begs the question; how does Cormier balance himself?

He has to come back after being soundly knocked out by the “real” champion, once again holding a belt fans will claim he never won for real. It’s hard to believe his first defense won’t be Volkan Oezdemir. Could he beat Daniel Cormier? Could this Jon Jones situation end up with Oezdemir holding a UFC belt in 2018? There are many questions in the midst of this drug test domino effect. Worst of all, we lost out on Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 8/23/2017.