McGregor and UFC push back on report he used banned drugs during leg injury recovery

Conor McGregor and the UFC have both rejected the framing of a New York Times report alleging that McGregor used “powerful, banned drugs” during his recovery from the gruesome leg fracture he sustained at UFC 264 in July 2021, with McGregor calling the situation “shocking” and insisting his only concern at the time was whether he would walk again.

The Times report stated that McGregor sought an exemption from USADA — then the UFC’s anti-doping partner — to use specific banned substances during his rehabilitation, and that the request was denied despite backing from his surgeon, Dr. Neal ElAttrache. McGregor subsequently removed himself from the USADA testing pool, citing a desire to “focus fully on his recovery,” before re-entering when he began preparing for his bout against Michael Chandler at UFC 303.

Speaking to Yahoo Sports, McGregor did not directly address whether the Times report was accurate, but expressed disbelief at the circumstances it described. “Shocking! Shocking! A man’s private medical, from the most devastating injury that you’ll see in combat sports,” he said. “You have an injury like that, you’re not going to walk again! The objective should be to get that athlete, that fighter, who has given his life, his limb, his livelihood for the entertainment of the people and for the profit of the company, it should be, ‘Get this man back on his feet.’”

McGregor pointed to what he described as a 20 percent chance of a “non-union” — a condition in which a broken bone fails to heal properly — as the genuine stakes of his recovery, framing any medication he took as a medical necessity rather than a competitive advantage. “F*ck this fighting game, are you crazy?! I have children to raise and play with,” he said.

He also acknowledged that he has no detailed knowledge of the specific drugs he was prescribed. “I took myself out of the pool, listened to my doctors, didn’t ask questions,” McGregor said. “I don’t even know. If you’re going to ask what was I on, I don’t even know. I don’t want to know. All I want to know is, what’s going to get me back to my feet to be able to play with my children in a normal capacity again.”

McGregor added that he has been back in the USADA testing pool for months and has never returned a failed test. Neither McGregor nor the UFC disputed the core timeline of events outlined in the Times report, but both objected to the characterisation of his conduct as wrongdoing.