UFC slams ‘garbage, trash’ Usada statement on Conor McGregor
The UFC has hit out at the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) for its statement on Conor McGregor this week, calling the agency’s words ‘false’, ‘garbage’ and ‘trash’. McGregor returned to the Usada testing pool on Sunday (8 October), as he prepares for his first fight since suffering a broken leg in July 2021, when he lost to Dustin Poirier for the second time in a row. However, Usada’s announcement of McGregor’s return to the pool was accompanied by a revelation that the agency would be ending its partnership with the UFC in January. Usada CEO Travis Tygart said the relationship between both parties had become ‘untenable’, and that he could not be sure whether the UFC would honour its stipulations when it comes to McGregor. In order to compete in the UFC, athletes must have been in the Usada pool for six months while returning at least two negative test results and zero positives. The UFC and McGregor hinted earlier this year, however, that Usada might grant the former champion an exemption. Tygart took exception to that suggestion this week. Now, the UFC’s Senior Vice-President of Athlete Health and Performance, Jeff Notitzky, and the promotion’s CBO, Hunter Campbell, have taken aim at Usada over this week’s developments. Campbell said at a press conference on Thursday (12 October): “At no point in time did Jeff, myself, or any other UFC representative, Dana [White, UFC president].... Not a single person ever went to Usada and told them anything other than Conor McGregor would reenter the program when he was healthy. “And in doing so, we would require him to be in the program for six months; there would be no exception to the rule. And what I said to Travis on multiple occasions, including the call on Monday, was there would never be a situation where Conor would fight until he had been in the program for six months, and my words were: ‘I don’t give a s*** if he has 37 clean tests.’ “[Conor has] conducted himself with integrity and honesty. He’s done everything right, and he’s – as you can imagine – very upset at the moment for the way that they’ve sort of used him. And they’ve never done that with any other athlete in history, and I think that’s a really important point. “I’ll say it one last time: What they’ve done to him is disgusting. And for an entity that holds themselves out to have a level of honour and integrity, using him as a media vehicle to advance a fake narrative is disturbing, disgusting, and I think they have some legitimate legal liability that they should be very concerned with. “They use him the way they have because he has allowed them to get a level of media attention that they can’t get on their own. Usada puts some s*** out, no one cares. You connect Conor to it, and all of a sudden it explodes, whether it triggers the algorithms or whatever. And truthfully, that’s why I’m most disappointed about the way that they’ve handled the last 48 hours. They used an athlete as a vehicle to advance a false narrative. I think it’s incredibly unethical – incredibly.” Meanwhile, Novitzky alleged: “The narrative that Usada put out yesterday is false, it’s garbage, trash. I can’t sit up here and come up with enough adjectives [for] what they said and what that’s done to this programme currently.” The UFC also said it would move forward with Drug Free Sport, which works with the NBA, NFL and MLB. Usada CEO Tygart told The Independent: “We stand by our statement and our credibility.” Click here to subscribe to The Independent’s Sport YouTube channel for all the latest sports videos. Read More Usada ends UFC partnership over ‘untenable’ Conor McGregor situation When will Conor McGregor return to the UFC? Alexander Volkanovski admits it’s ‘crazy’ to fight Islam Makhachev on short notice UFC hires Saddam Hussein interrogator to oversee new drug-testing programme Usada ends UFC partnership over ‘untenable’ Conor McGregor situation Alexander Volkanovski admits it’s ‘crazy’ to fight Islam Makhachev on short notice
2023-10-13 22:16
A teacher is dead and 2 people are wounded after a France stabbing attack that echoes 2020 killing
Authorities say a man of Chechen origin who was under surveillance by the French security services stabbed a teacher to death at his former high school in northern France and critically wounded two other people
2023-10-13 22:16
Seth Rogen's wife Lauren Miller Rogen reveals she had brain aneurysm removed
Lauren Miller Rogen revealed this week that she had surgery to remove a brain aneurysm.
2023-10-13 22:16
Elf Bar finds an easy way around US vape import ban: a name change
Chinese disposable e-cigarettes from Elf Bar remain widely available in the U.S. more than four months after U.S. health regulators moved to ban their importation
2023-10-13 21:59
PNC Financial to cut jobs after profit drops, revenue misses estimates
(Reuters) -PNC Financial Services Group said on Friday it would reduce its staff by about 4% as part of a
2023-10-13 21:57
Jada Pinkett Smith says Tupac Shakur was her 'soulmate'
Jada Pinkett Smith is diving deeper into her past relationships.
2023-10-13 21:55
Israeli evacuation call in Gaza hikes Egypt's fears of a mass exodus of refugees into its territory
Israel’s call for half of the Gaza Strip’s population to evacuate south is hiking Egypt’s fears of a massive influx of refugees across the border into its territory
2023-10-13 21:54
Nick Castellanos drops an f-bomb during live MLB Network interview
Nick Castellanos played hero for the Philadelphia Phillies again and then may have given them an NSFW postseason mantra to carry through to the World Series.
2023-10-13 21:54
Nasa’s Psyche mission set to launch to ancient metal asteroid today: Live updates
Nasa is about to set off to a distant, metal asteroid that could tell us how planets form. On Friday, the spacecraft – currently folded in the cargo bay of a SpaceX rocket – will leave from the Kennedy Space Centre and begin a mission that will see it arrive at what is thought to be an ancient remnant of a protoplanet in 2029. Propelled by a system of solar-electric ion thrusters being used for the first time on an interplanetary mission, the spacecraft - about the size of a small van - is expected to reach its target on the outer fringes of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter nearly six years from now. It would then orbit Psyche for 26 months, scanning the asteroid with instruments built to measure the asteroid’s gravity, magnetic proprieties and composition. Psyche measures roughly 173 miles (279 km) across at its widest point. The leading hypothesis for this asteroid’s origin is that Psyche is the once-molten, long-frozen inner hulk of a baby planet torn apart by collisions with other celestial bodies at the dawn of the solar system. It orbits the sun about three times farther than Earth, even at its closest to our planet.
2023-10-13 21:53
Malaysia will cut subsidies and tax luxury goods as it unveils a 2024 budget narrowing the deficit
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says subsidies will be progressively cut and new taxes launched next year as part of the 2024 federal budget
2023-10-13 21:49
Dillon Danis claims Logan Paul fight is off and he’ll be facing Jake Paul instead
Dillon Danis has claimed his hotly-anticipated fight with Logan Paul is cancelled and that he'll be fighting Paul's brother, Jake, instead. The MMA fighter accused his Youtuber/boxer opponent of breaking the rules surrounding their weigh-in ahead of their boxing match in Manchester on Saturday, which they are competing in alongside Tommy Fury and KSI, in a series of posts on Twitter/X. But Paul denied the claims and replied with a video of him on the scales coming in at 194.3lbs. Danis didn't back down. "He claims he made weight, but it doesn't count," he said. "The rules are the rules." "If he wants to be viewed as a genuine boxer, he needs to follow the 11 o'clock deadline. Look at the time he posted. It's not fair; I had to follow the rules, and he isn't an exception." He continued in another post: "The commission's rules state that weigh-ins are between 10 and 11. If you miss the 11 o'clock deadline, you've missed weight. I weighed in at 10:15, but Logan still hasn't. "The commission said that if he doesn't arrive by the 11am deadline, the fight is off. He missed the weight, but then called misfits and changed the rules to give himself an extra hour. "We should be on an even playing field, he shouldn't get special treatment. He’s already got more juice than Tropicana. He missed the weight, plain and simple. They’re trying to handicap me as much as possible.' Then he said he was fighting the other Paul brother instead but whether that ends up being more trash talk to psyche out his opponent or a reality remains to be seen. However, the Mirror reports that Paul did indeed make weight on time, which would disprove Danis’s claims. What a palava. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-10-13 21:49
US SEC to finalize rules increasing transparency of short selling market
By Douglas Gillison The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is set on Friday to adopt new rules that
2023-10-13 21:47
