Michael Bisping Says He Felt Jon Jones's Wrath for Asking Hard Questions Ahead of UFC 232

Michael Bisping Says He Felt Jon Jones’s Wrath for Asking Hard Questions Ahead of UFC 232

January 2, 2019

Jon Jones wasn’t happy with a much of the media probing that he received ahead of UFC 232. Chief among those that felt his wrath was former UFC champion Michael Bisping, who was working as an analyst for FOX Sports for the event.

Jones has been under a mountain of scrutiny because of his drug testing history and what UFC officials, as well as USADA officials, are characterizing as residual amounts of a former ingestion of a banned substance for which he had already served a suspension. They claim there is no evidence to support the idea that Jones has re-ingested the banned substance identified as oral Turinabol.

Bisping has served as an analyst for FOX Sports on numerous occasions. He’s embraced the role and realizes that he isn’t on the show to be friends with the fighters he interviews and sometimes has to ask the hard questions that many athletes don’t like to answer.

“I don’t care about asking difficult questions and I asked Jon Jones some questions which apparently he didn’t like because after the fight we interviewed him again and when we were on commercial break he was talking f—ing s–t,” Bisping said during a recent episode of his “Believe You Me” podcast, explaining the fallout with Jones.

“To whoever the powers that be at FOX, he [said], ‘Is that motherf—-r Michael Bisping going to be asking questions again with his f—ing dumb s–t,’ and all this.”

Bisping’s questions to Jones followed the UFC 232 ceremonial weigh-in, which aired live on FOX Sports 1. After stepping off the stage, Jones appeared on FS1 for an interview by Karyn Bryant, Kenny Florian, and Bisping. That is when Bisping asked the questions that Jones apparently didn’t want to answer, as he evaded directly responding to Bisping’s questions, which didn’t include some of the more nuanced details of Jones’s case.

“Here’s what we never spoke about,” Bisping continued. “He tested positive in August, he tested positive in September, and he tested positive in December. Now they’re saying that the metabolites and the presence of what he took, the Turinabol, can stay in his body for a long time. So, if you put that all together, he’s probably going to test positive after fight.

“So, I said, ‘Jon, has there been any discussion as to what happens if you test positive after the fight?’ Because I’ll tell you what, if I’m Alexander Gustafsson and you stopped me in the third round, but the motherf—-r tests positive — and I don’t care how many small pinches of salt it is in an Olympic-sized swimming pool — I want that overturned to a f—ing no contest because you’ve tested positive after the fact.”

Jones sidestepped the question, instead focusing on the fight, and then fielded more questions from the other analysts. But when it came back around to Bisping, he wasn’t done with his line of questioning.

“So then I went back at him again, I kind of slightly reworded it and once again he ignored it. You could see he wasn’t happy,” said Bisping.

“I wasn’t trying to be a dick with Jon. I love watching Jon Jones fight; he’s incredible. I’ve been around him enough throughout my fight career and Jon’s always been cool with me. I’ve always liked the guy, but being in that position that we’re in, we’ve got to ask those f—ing questions.”