Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Chuck Liddell has been retired from the sport since being knocked out by former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin at UFC 115 in 2010.
Jon Jones is another former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion and he recently failed a second drug test, but Liddell thinks that the former champion has been hanging around the wrong people.
“He’s his own worst enemy,” Liddell said on The MMA Hour. “And he was such a great fighter, It seemed like he decided in his offseason that one time to start using steroids. Obviously he’s got his time in court, I guess, still. I don’t know. But it seems real obvious with his increase in size and stuff. But I don’t know that he needed that, and it just seemed like he got maybe around the wrong people, got around the wrong ideas, and decided he wanted to (use PEDs), and now he’s gotten caught. It’s sad.”
Jones is facing penalties from both the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) and USADA, but nothing has been announced yet.
Liddell also believes it was in between his first suspension and return at UFC 214 was when things took a wrong turn for Jones.
“It looked like there was a huge change in a short period of time, that one break he took,” Liddell said. “It seemed like he grew a lot over that time. So, I don’t know. I seem to think that’s when it started, but I don’t know. He hasn’t come out and said anything. It’s another tainted supplement (at UFC 214), right? So I don’t know. He gets his time in court, we’ll see what happens with that too.”
During his decade plus MMA career, the former light heavyweight champion in Liddell had never failed a drug test, although the methods where nowhere near as stringent.
