No Sauce, No Training?

Former UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor will finally make his Octagon return later this year in a 155-pound battle opposite fellow TUF 31 coach Michael Chandler. By the time “Notorious” enters the cage, it will have been more than two years since his devastating leg injury suffered in a loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in Las Vegas.

During his absence, McGregor packed on a massive amount of muscle and found himself beyond the reach of United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which keeps a short leash on UFC fighters regardless of their booking status. That led to rampant speculation “Notorious” was supplementing his workouts with performance-enhancing drugs.

Or maybe it was just Photoshop.

“He’s been sauced up too, he wasn’t even in the USADA pool,” top bantamweight contender Sean O’Malley said on the TimboSugarShow podcast (transcribed by MMA News). “So it doesn’t matter what he’s taking at that time. He obviously has to be in the USADA pool for six months. But imagine being on that shit, feeling so fucking good, training. You fucking train, you do your shit, you can just train, and train, and train. And then you have to get off that to make sure you pass all the tests. And then you’re not feeling like training as much.”

That would leave him within the 50-60 percent of fighters who do this.

McGregor will need six months of clean drug tests before he can make his UFC return which is probably why the promotion booked “Notorious” to lead a group of up-and-coming fighters on Season 31 of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), the second time McGregor has coached atop the long-running combat sports reality show.

The good news is that McGregor, 34, has never failed a drug test in the 15 years that he’s been competing and I don’t imagine he’ll start now. Whether or not a victory over Chandler leads to a potential title shot remains to be seen, but as long as “Notorious” maintains his status as the biggest draw in MMA, he’ll continue to play by his own set of rules.