Jon Jones: 'Belfort used steroids when I fought him and the UFC knew'

Jones (left) and Belfort (right) faced each other in 2012. Photo: Josh Hedges/UFC

A few months ago, the news released by a North American website thanks to an email sent by mistake that the UFC had omitted the fact that Vitor belfort had been caught in an anti-doping test before the fight against Jon Jones to preserve the event fell like a bomb in the MMA world. After several repercussions, the episode had lost strength in recent times. Until now. This is because the very Jon Jones decided to break the silence and confirmed that the organization was aware that the Brazilian was allegedly using steroids.

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"The Vitor belfort used steroids when he fought me. The UFC was well aware of this well before the fight. They didn't penalize him for it. They let him fight me knowing that I would be fighting a guy using steroids, which is a risk to my life. What would you do?”, said Jones, in an interview with journalist Ariel Helwani, from the North American website “MMA Fighting”.

Jones, in fact, recalled that his distrust began the week of the fight. “At his age and at that point in his career, I remember looking at his abs at the weigh-in and I was like, 'Man, I'm a lot of years younger than you and you look a lot tighter and tighter than me.' And I knew that I had trained really hard in that preparation,” he said.

The former champion, who had relationship problems with the organization after refusing to face Chael Sonnen at the last minute at UFC 151 (which ended up being cancelled), he even acknowledged his responsibility for past actions, but did not exempt the organization from blame. “I wish I had been more of a 'standard employee' and done things right, but at the same time, I have been used by them time and time again. Yeah, like… It's hard to see from where I am. I just hope the fans are aware of some of the shenanigans they pull sometimes,” he concluded.

Recently, Vitor said he did not believe that the episode could tarnish his legacy and defended himself against the accusations. ““I was starting my treatment (with TRT) and I had approval from my doctor and the UFC, so they needed someone to accept the fight. I volunteered, shared all my exams and one became public. I think they disclosed something private, but everything was approved”, declared the fighter, at the beginning of November, in an interview with the North American program “Inside MMA”.

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