Manager ‘95 Percent’ Confident Jon Jones Will Return to Octagon in 2018

Malki Kawa, who is the manager of former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight kingpin Jon Jones, is “95 percent” confident his fighter will be back inside the Octagon this year.

The 30-year-old last fought at UFC 214 on July 29, where he knocked out Daniel Cormier to claim the light heavyweight championship belt. This decision was overturned to a “no-contest” on Sept. 13, as Jones allegedly tested positive for Turinabol in a sample he provided after the weigh-ins at UFC 214. As a result of the decision, Jones was stripped of the title.

Kawa recently spoke with Luke Thomas on his radio show SiriusXM about a number of topics, including the Jones controversy and gave his opinion when he’ll return to the Octagon:

“If USADA is a respectable organization, which I think that they are, and they take all the information they compiled, all the interviews that they’ve done and all the things they’ve seen, they know for a fact that Jon Jones was not cheating and he was not intentionally taking any type of substance.

I think they know that and everybody can come to that conclusion based on the circumstances of his situation. That’s the most I am going to say at this point because obviously it’s ongoing. I’d like to say [that there’s] about a 95 percent chance [he fights in 2018].”