‘The Dude Needs To Stay Away From Coke’

Conor McGregor has technically been retired for the entirety of 2022.

Although “The Notorious” has been healing from his broken leg injury suffered against Dustin Poirier in July 2021 (watch highlights), he hasn’t been tested once by United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in 2022. McGregor has continued to stay on the minds of some fighters, however, having gone back and forth perhaps most notably with a fellow former double champ, Henry Cejudo in recent months over training techniques.

When catching wind of McGregor’s omission from the testing pool, the re-emergent “Triple C” was surprised, to say the least.

“Is that true?” Cejudo reacted on his YouTube channel. “So he’s retired then. What does that mean? He’s on that privileged list. That’s crazy. Those are things to bring up, that’s crazy.

“Roids aren’t going to help Conor, of course, he’s on that s—t, knowing that,” he finished. “But it ain’t gonna help him. The dude needs to stay away from coke. That’s what he needs to do.”

MMA Fighting reached out to USADA today (Tues., Sept. 27, 2022) for a statement on McGregor’s lack of test samples. While details into McGregor’s situation weren’t provided, a statement was offered up.

“Once UFC athletes are enrolled in the testing program, they are subject to testing — even when not competing — unless they notify the UFC of their retirement, their contract is terminated, or they are otherwise removed from the program,” the statement read.

“In the event of an athlete’s return to the UFC, they are required to remain in the USADA testing pool for six months before they are permitted to compete. Similar to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules, the UFC may grant an exemption to the six-month written notice rule in exceptional circumstances or where the strict application of that rule would be manifestly unfair to the athlete, but in both cases under the UFC rules, the athlete must provide at least two negative samples before returning to competition. We do not comment on the testing pool status of any particular athlete.”

McGregor is currently in the middle of filming as part of the upcoming Road House movie in the Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, Cejudo is back to training and getting himself ready for his own MMA return.