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The UFC is heading for a legal battle with USADA after the anti-doping agency made false and damaging statements about the UFC and its former champion Conor McGregor. UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell slammed USADA CEO Travis Tygart for defaming the UFC and McGregor and demanded that USADA apologize by Thursday at 5 p.m. PT or face legal action.
Campbell and UFC executive Jeff Novitzky also announced that the UFC will end its deal with USADA in December 2023 and start its own drug-testing and anti-doping program in January 2024. The new program will be led by former FBI agent George Piro, who will act as an independent administrator.
The announcement came after Tygart revealed on Wednesday that USADA and the UFC will part ways after eight years of partnership. Tygart claimed that the reason for the split was that USADA and the UFC disagreed on whether McGregor should be allowed to fight without being in the testing pool for at least six months.
Campbell denied Tygart’s claim and said that he had repeatedly told Tygart that McGregor would never fight until he had been in the program for six months, regardless of how many clean tests he had.
Campbell also said that McGregor was fully compliant with the testing program and that he was very angry at how USADA had used him as a media tool to spread a false narrative. He said that USADA had never treated any other athlete in such a way and that it was a disgraceful and dishonest act.
Campbell said that USADA had exposed itself to serious legal consequences and that the UFC would not tolerate such behavior.
The UFC and USADA had been working together since 2015, during which time more than 27,000 tests were conducted on UFC fighters.
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