Rumors and fake news can do a lot of damage to one’s reputation. One of the biggest examples of this is the slander of UFC fighter Jon Jones, after he failed a drug test on June 16th.
Jonathan Dwight Jones, or better known as his cage fighter name Jon “Bones” Jones, was considered by a lot of people, as the greatest fighter ever. Since winning the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship on March 19, 2011, and since then, Jones was thought to be the greatest talent the sport had ever seen. That high praise changed when it was announced on July 6, 2016 that Jon Jones had failed an out of competition drug test stemming back to June 16th.
The critics and the media then began to doubt Jon’s athletic accomplishments, and began to question whether he had been taking steroids his whole career. With the new high level drug testing being implemented for all the athletes in the UFC, a lot more fighters were finally getting caught for being on steroids, because of the stricter drug testing, and it seemed like Jones was one of them. Twenty-Four hours after it was announced that Jones had failed a drug test, there was already hundreds of articles out claiming that Jon Jones was on steroids, with people slandering his name all over social media. The MMA world blew up with people accusing Jon Jones of being on steroids, yet they couldn’t even name the substance he popped for.
A day after it was announced that Jon Jones failed a drug test, he hosted a press conference, giving his statement on the whole situation. He wanted to face the media and deny any use of PED’s (Performance Enhancing Drugs). Jones said he was going to argue against the case, because he knew he knew he never partook in the use of steroids, and didn’t know what he could’ve taken, to have the banned substance in his system. At this point, it was already too late. All the rumors and articles were out, accusing Jon Jones of taking steroids. Even though one is innocent until proven guilty, it didn’t matter at this point. All the rumors and slander had already decided that Jon Jones was guilty, and that his career was forever tainted.
After a long hard fought battle with Jones and the athletic commission, Jon Jones was able to prove that he did not purposely take a banned substance. It was proven that he took something that was very much legal, but was tainted. Even though he proved himself innocent, it didn’t matter because the rumors already made people consider him a cheater. Jon Jones will now be considered a cheater for the rest of his career by some, all because of the rumors and fake news.