Hunter Campbell addressed the ongoing situation between USADA and the UFC.
On Wednesday, October 11, the CEO of USADA, Travis Tygart, released a statement revealing that Conor McGregor had rejoined the drug-testing pooling. Tygart also dropped a bombshell by announcing their partnership with the UFC ends on January 1, 2024, which won’t be renewed.
Tygart claimed the UFC chose to go in a different direction due to the ongoing situation with McGregor. For those that don’t know, ‘The Notorious’ wanted to fight this year without abiding by the six months of random drug testing.
USADA wouldn’t give him an exemption, leading to the former two-division UFC champion’s highly-anticipated return being postponed.
As for Hunter Campbell and the UFC, they have a much different story. Campbell, the UFC Chief Business Officer, and Jeff Novitzky, the UFC Senior VP of Athlete Health and Performance, held a press conference on Thursday to address the situation.
Campbell opened up his statement by saying:
“As I’m sure you’re all aware, in the last 24 to 48 hours, USADA has put out a statement. I think, disappointingly, they used Conor McGregor as a vehicle to sort of try to articulate and reframe a complete misrepresentation of what occurred over the last several months…What USADA has put out in the last 48 hours couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
Hunter Campbell continued:
“I’m gonna give you guys a legal letter today…[The letter] was sent to USADA last night. The core focus of the letter is, as I’ve just explained to you, the material misrepresentations that I believe were made on behalf of USADA and Travis [Tygart].”
Read the full statement from USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart here: https://t.co/3vfuhx5haD pic.twitter.com/MNGgnDN6U6
— USADA (@usantidoping) October 11, 2023
Hunter Campbell says the UFC never asked USADA to exempt Conor McGregor from their drug-testing policy
Travis Tygart’s statement on behalf of USADA accused UFC personnel of attempting to get an exemption for Conor McGregor.
Meanwhile, Hunter Campbell has claimed that he and the UFC continuously ensured the drug-testing agency that McGregor wouldn’t fight without being in the testing pool for six months.
Campbell had this to say during the press conference on Thursday:
“Whatever he’s [Travis Tygart] gonna continue to say, he’s can say. I know today I was told after I think hey received our letter last night, he’s already backtracked, and he’s now confirmed that at no point in time did Jeff [Novitzky], myself, or any other UFC representative, Dana [White], not a single person ever went to USADA and told them anything other than Conor McGregor would reenter the program when he was healthy.”
Campbell continued:
“In doing so, we would require him to be in the program for six months. There would be no exception to the rule…There would never be a situation where Conor would fight until he’d been in the program for six months. My words were, ‘I don’t give a sh*t if he has 37 clean tests.”
As of January 1, 2024, the UFC will work with Drug Free Sport to execute the best drug-testing program. The UFC will also assign George Piro as an independent administrator of the operation. Piro is a former FBI agent who ran the Saddam Hussein interrogation process.
Watch the entire press conference from Hunter Campbell and Jeff Novitzky below:
