UFC vs USADA: officials at UFC unveil new dope-test agency while lashing out at USADA

Following the recent scene of USADA CEO Travis Tygart’s thinly-cloaked accusations at the UFC, the latter’s officials have lashed back in the dope-test contract schism while denying all of USADA’s allegations word-for-word as expected.

UFC allegedly refused to sign a new contract with USADA following a disagreement on how long Connor McGregor, a fighter at UFC, should undergo testing before contesting again. USADA’s protocol has been the guideline for dope-testing at the UFC for more than seven years. Their union started in 2015.

To fill the shoes of USADA in January 2024 is DFSI, under the leadership of former FBI agent George Piro. Piro is famously known for his interrogation of Saddam Hussein after the latter’s capture years ago. Companies the organisation serves in testing their athletes include the NBA, NFL, NCAA, and others.

USADA’s CEO expressed concerns about the UFC’s integrity in allowing only clean athletes to contest. While revealing the man who will head the dope-testing corner at the UFC as of next year, the UFC’s senior vice president of athlete health and performance, Jeff Novitzky, said the following:

‘I want to introduce, not in person here today but to the UFC world, the independent administrator of the UFC’s new and improved anti-doping program, George Piro.

‘When you talk about George Piro, you’re talking about an individual with the highest level of integrity and credibility you can possibly imagine.

‘While I had a noticeable federal law enforcement career, my resume pales in comparison to that of George Piro. And as I talk about George Piro, he’s quite literally an American hero.

‘He just recently retired as the special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Miami, Florida. He previously was the assistant director of the international operations division at FBI headquarters.

‘He was the supervisor of the FBI’s joint terrorism task force. He’s also a world champion no-gi jiu-jitsu masters level. He knows the sport. He knows what the athletes go through from his world-class level training.’

According to Novitzsky, ‘George will make every – and I stress every – final decision in the program. That authority will be his and his alone. We will surround him with experts, the likes of Dr. (Dan) Eichner, so that George has every resource at his disposal to make the right call every single time.’

Then he made comments clearly directed at USADA.

‘George is not going to be waking up fighters in the middle of the night that have two hours left of sleep before a championship match like what happened to (Alexander) Volkanovanski in Abu Dhabi.

‘George is not going to be attempting to collect urine samples like USADA did from Paulo Costa at 6 a.m. in Salt Lake City as he’s wrapped under blankets trying to lose the last couple of pounds and probably hasn’t ingested any fluid for 12, 18 hours.

‘George isn’t going to make testing decisions like we’ve seen of athletes who have lost a fight, retired in the octagon, had been tested pre-bout, and then wanted to be blood tested post-bout, after they’ve announced their retirement. So, you would think, knowing the sport, common sense, very basic decisions that it seems like time after time we’ve seen.

‘George has too much knowledge and respect of the sport to be making decisions like that, and he’ll be an immediate improvement right off the bat in terms of someone who’s intimately familiar with what these athletes are doing and going through.’

These statements by the official were not countered by Hunter Campbell, another official present during the conference, nor did UFC say anything to remotely discredit it. But Campbell spoke about the relationship between the UFC and USADA.

‘Eight years ago when Jeff came over to work with Dana (White) and Lorenzo (Fertitta) and Laurence (Epstein) and the whole team here to build out this program, there wasn’t a mechanism to do this in any other way than using USADA.,’ said Campbell. ‘Frankly, I would say, the first six years of the program, USADA was an incredible partner. I know that we built out the single greatest testing program in all of professional sports.

‘I couldn’t be prouder of the program that was built. In the last several years, and I know a lot of you have followed it and seen it, there’s been a tremendous amount of technological change that has occurred and not only has there been a massive amount of change, there’s also been a change in the science that has gone into it as well as the players in the space.

‘… We didn’t terminate the USADA partnership. We just informed them that we wouldn’t be renewing and that we would be building out a new program at the beginning of the year.

‘So, the testing continues, everything is status quo through the end of the year until something happens otherwise, I don’t know. It’s going to be a complicated relationship for the next few months. Conor (McGregor) is 100 percent in the pool.’

That one was an FBI agent, which is not one of the qualifications for being trustworthy. Tygart had pointed out that USADA had no intentions of accepting bribes at the expense of clean contesters.

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