The saga of Jon Jones remains ongoing, but if the former UFC light heavyweight champion is cleared to return to active competition without major penalty, fellow 205-pound contender Alexander Gustafsson believes it would be unfair to throw Jones back into the UFC title mix without forcing the embattled American to work his way back up the divisional ladder.

"It wouldn't be fair, giving him a title shot," Gustafsson said Monday on The MMA Hour. "I'm not saying I'm going to get it. I'm just saying, after everything that happened, it's not fair to other fighters too, who've been working their asses off and they've been fighting each other. So, not a title shot right away. Just give him a fun fight first and that's it."

Jones, 29, is currently serving a temporary suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission while he awaits the outcome of his failed UFC 200 drug test.

Jones tested positive for Hydroxy-clomiphene, an anti-estrogenic agent, as well a Letrozole metabolite, an aromatase inhibitor, in a June 16 out-of-competition drug test conducted by USADA. The results of the test forced the UFC to remove Jones from the main event of UFC 200 opposite Daniel Cormier just three days before the bicentennial event.

Jones is expected to appear before the NAC for a disciplinary hearing in October and also could face an additional one-year suspension from USADA, although UFC president Dana White recently stated that "it looks like [Jones] did not take the supplement that everybody thought he took" and that things "could look good for Jon Jones" if the process continues to play out as it has.

White has since championed the idea of a fight between Jones and top contender Anthony Johnson for Jones' return, an idea with which both Johnson and Cormier vehemently disagree.

"Anthony actually talked to me and said he doesn't feel like Jon deserves anything," Cormier said recently on UFC Tonight. "He goes, it's time to stop coddling this kid, stop giving him things that he doesn't deserve.

"Anthony and I have been burned by him more than anybody else. And I just truly can't understand how we could schedule another fight after (UFC 200), it being four times in two years. He's got some work to do, man. He's got to gain some trust of his peers. We are his peers. We have to go in there and compete against him and we don't trust him."

Either way, the odd man out of that equation is Gustafsson, who currently sits at No. 2 on the UFC's the media-generated rankings.

Gustafsson has lost to all three members of the Jones-Johnson-Cormier trifecta, however his fights against Jones and Cormier were razor-thin, and the 29-year-old Swede recently returned to the win column with a unanimous decision victory over Jan Blachowicz at UFC Fight Night 93.

So while Gustafsson knows there is plenty left to play out in Jones' road to redemption, he also wouldn't mind stepping up to the plate for Jones' first fight back in the Octagon, especially considering that the first meeting between the two light heavyweights resulted in one of the greatest title fights in UFC history.

"I'm up for suggestions (for my next opponent), so why not?" Gustafsson said. "But let's see what they say. I'm up for suggestions, so whatever they give me, I'm down with. A second fight with Jones, who knows. It's going to be good though."