This smacks of desperation.
Conor McGregor remains one of the most tested athletes in the world and is currently in not one, but two United States Anti-Doping Agency testing pools ahead of his August 26 showdown with Floyd Mayweather.
‘The Notorious’ is obliged to provide samples for USADA as a UFC fighter but is also in a testing pool for professional boxers, according to a USADA email given to MMAFighting.com.
“Mr. McGregor is subject to both the UFC Anti-Doping Policy (because he’s still an active UFC athlete) and the anti-doping program agreed to for the Mayweather vs. McGregor boxing match.”
There has never been any indication that McGregor is anything but a clean athlete and he prides himself on the fact that he does not resort to performance-enhancing substances.
That makes the recent claims of his former rival’s boxing coach all the more bizarre as Richard Perez, coach to UFC star Nate Diaz, has aimed a completely unfounded accusation at McGregor.
Speaking to BJ Penn Radio, Perez was discussing McGregor’s chances against Mayweather when, out of nowhere, he suggested that the Irishman used a vague “substance” ahead of his rematch with Diaz at UFC 202.
“No, he doesn’t have a puncher’s chance – and he gasses out,” Perez said. “I don’t care how hard he trains. They’ve got to watch out for him, because he’s probably going to take the substance that he did when he [fought] with Nathan, that woke him up.
“I know they’re taking tests, but they’ve got to be careful with that because he will do it. There’s no way he’s going to do this without taking any substances, and be strong in boxing, because boxing is a lot of stamina.”
Perez was pushed to explain what he meant by his claim against McGregor, who is the most tested lightweight on the UFC roster.
“Oh yeah, they even said it to me afterward, it was a while after the fight, that they did find him taking some substance. But they didn’t do anything to him,” Perez continued. “It was after the fight, probably a couple months after the fight, they brought it up about him. [At the time of] the last fight, it was the last fight that Nathan fought him.”
We really can’t stress enough that those comments from Perez are completely unsubstantiated and throughout USADA’s relationship with the UFC, they’ve not shied away from outing athletes even when it might harm the promotion.
Jon Jones was pulled from the main event of UFC 200, arguably the organisation’s most high-profile pay-per-view to date, just days ahead of the event after he was found to have tested positive for a banned substance.
So USADA would not hesitate to flag a positive McGregor test were it to appear but it simply hasn’t.
But try telling Richard Perez that.
“When you think about it, a guy at 145lbs, moving up to 170 the first time, he bulked up in muscle, that’s not going to happen,” Perez said. “You’re going to have some fat in you cause you’re short. You’re not going to be all muscle like that. I even said, when Nathan first fought him, when they called him, I said, ‘look, he’s got to be on some kind of steroids or substance.’
“And when Nathan asked [McGregor], he got really upset about it. If it had been me, I would have been laughing about it. I would have [sarcastically] been like ‘yeah steroids, yeah, yeah,’ but he was really mad, he was angry. So that speaks for itself right there. Mayweather and them really need to have that guy checked.
“After the last fight, I read it, it’s not steroids, it’s something that bulks you up, I forget what it’s called. It’s illegal, still you can’t use it in the UFC, even in boxing you can’t use it. So I guess now that’s why they’re both being tested every week.”
