By Hunter Homistek

The Jon Jones news hit my phone as I casually strolled around The Limited, tagging behind a motivated female specimen who just began her third lap around the store.

It froze me, stopping me cold in front of a table of multicolored dress slacks.

“No way. Jon Jones popped for cocaine!” I told the eager shopper ahead of me. I couldn’t stay away from Twitter. Every update and every layer to the story added more and more intrigue. The greatest fighter of all time just notched the biggest win of his career over Daniel Cormier at UFC 182, and now he’s getting busted for cocaine—a test result that, by the rules, never should’ve come to light? Madness.

If only we knew then just how mad the story would get. This was the beginning. This was the appetizer before the appetizer, that pack of crackers you snag for the road because you’re just too damn hungry and, oh, it’s Friday, so there’s probably a wait at the restaurant.

The Jon Jones story took shape from there. Rehab, a hit-and-run, stripped of his title, an oh-so-close rematch with Cormier at UFC 197, etc., etc. You know the narrative. Jones provided us plenty stop-in-your-tracks moments—and none of them were good.

The latest came Wednesday evening when a dejected Dana White took the stage in Las Vegas for an impromptu press conference. UFC Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance Jeff Novitsky followed, announcing Jones had been flagged for a potential anti-doping violation. Jones would not compete at UFC 200. Welcome to the main event (again), Brock Lesnar.

So it goes with Jones. His team held a press conference Thursday morning to explain the situation, saying the latest slip-up was indeed performance-enhancing-drug related. They denied any wrongdoing. It looks like we’re headed toward another tainted supplement case. Buckle up.

This is secondary to the bigger picture. There’s nothing remotely fun or encouraging about the career devastation Jones inflicted upon himself. Whether he gets six months, one year, two years—whatever—for this latest slip-up, the damage is done. For real this time.

He can come back to the cage, but he’ll never regain his former glory. This asterisk is going to stick—tainted supplement or not. Through everything, it still felt like if Jones returned at UFC 200 and wiped out Cormier, said the right things, and acted appropriately all the way, we’d find a rug and a broom and call it a day.

Welcome back. We missed you.

“What could have been” and “what is,” though, rarely agrees. It’s only when “what is” disappoints us that we bring up the former at all, and my goodness is Jones’ career filled with “what could have beens” now. No elementary-school assembly is going to make up for this one.

Ultimately, Jones didn’t wreck UFC 200. Lesnar vs. Mark Hunt—and the rest of the stacked card—will sell pay-per-views. People will cheer. They’ll drink. They’ll spill their drinks on their neighbors inside the T-Mobile Arena.

All the fun will still happen. The real devastation, for Jones, is internal. And he knows it. With tears rolling down Jones’ cheeks as he attempted to make sense of the situation for the media members in attendance, the severity hit.

It was the look of a man who genuinely isn’t a bad person, whose poor judgment will now forever overshadow unparalleled greatness in the realm of combat. It was the look of a Jones who finally saw his past self for what it was: The most promising fighter on the planet. What could have been loomed large on that stage.

It was the look of defeat.

And with Jones, that defeat could only come at the hands of one man: himself.