Miesha Tate says with PED’s in his system, Jon Jones can’t use ignorance as an excuse.
After testing positive for Turinabol, Jon Jones has recently come out to publicly deny things, saying he would “never do steriods.” At the end of the day, the PED was found in his system, and according to a former champion in Miesha Tate, saying you didn’t know how it got there isn’t a valid excuse.
“You’re either clean or you’re not. There is no gray zone when it comes to full contact sports, period,” Tate told MMA Tonight on Sirius XM. “I don’t care if USADA says, Miesha, don’t eat Cheerios the week of your fight. Guess what, I ain’t eating Cheerios. That’s the rules. They make it so the sport is safe and clean, and we need to follow them.”
According to the retired former UFC and Strikeforce champion, all the information is given to the fighters, and it is very easy to have substances that you take verified by USADA.
“You know the rules directly ahead of time,” Tate explained. “USADA hands out pamphlets, tons of information. They make it very very easy. If you have a question, if there’s anything that a doctor prescribes you, you have phone numbers, you have a website. You can run it through a number of people to verify if this is a safe product or not.
“I utilized this many times myself, just to be precautions,” she said. “I have a slight thyroid disorder. My thyroid runs a little bit slow. I took a natural pig hormone, but I wanted to make sure that it was safe, it was okay. It was cleared, and it was alright, but I went through the process to make sure that what I was putting into my body — I sent all my supplements to USADA to have them cleared, and they’re happy to do that. And that gives me the reassurance because I don’t want to accidentally take something.”
“But if you’re ‘accidentally’ speeding, and a police officer pulls you over, and said, ‘sorry sir, I was going 20 over, I didn’t realize,’ you’re still going 20 over, period. You can’t use ignorance as an excuse, and it needs to be 100% clean, not basically clean.”
Prior to this, Jones tested positive for clomiphene and letrozole, and attributed it to a “dick pill” he took. They claim he wasn’t actually trying to cheat or intentionally ingest the banned substances, but regardless of intention, Jones was still handed the maximum suspension for being reckless.
Will that still be the case this time around? We’ll find out eventually, but Jones is now potentially facing very steep, and possibly career ending punishments.
