“We never said Conor should be exempt from the six-month testing period,” UFC vice president of legal affairs Hunter Campbell said at a press conference in Las Vegas. “He did everything right, acted honorably, and now he’s very upset about the way they used him. They’ve never done that to any other athlete in history, and I think it’s an important moment.”
“The way they did it to him is just disgusting. For an organization that claims a certain level of integrity and honesty to use him in the media to promote a fake story is disturbing and disgusting, and I think they could be held legally responsible for it, which they should be seriously concerned about”
UFC CEO, Dana White, also finds USADA’s action unacceptable.
“It wasn’t an announcement – it was a dirty move on their part,” the head of the organization said on The Pat McAfee Show. “What happened yesterday was just a bunch of de***ing, but that’s not my concern – I’ll let Jeff Nowitzki and our attorney Hunter Campbell deal with it.”
White said the organization will not stop its anti-doping program, which will be regulated from the new year by Drug Free Sport International, an independent agency.
“We will continue the program and pay an independent company,” the UFC executive explained. “We have a standard that we set, but a lot of people are not happy with USADA. Our deal expires at the end of the year and we’re moving in a different direction, especially after the dirty move they made yesterday.”
The previous day, USADA CEO Travis Tygart had publicly announced the termination of his partnership with the UFC, in effect, stating outright that the reason was the agency’s principled stance on Conor McGregor, whom the world’s strongest league was trying to get back into fights by bypassing the mandatory six-month testing period for fighters returning to the testing pool.