Dana White gave his early comments on the recent reveal that USADA and UFC as they are going their separate ways.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart confirmed in a statement released that the two parties will be going in different directions. USADA will stop working with the UFC as of 2024. USADA has been testing UFC athletes for the last eight years.
“Despite a positive and productive meeting about a contract renewal in May 2023, the UFC did an about-face and informed USADA on Monday, October 9, that it was going in a different direction,” Tygart wrote.
Dana White reacted to this statement on the Pat McAfee show. White called this announcement a dirty move. Later, Jeff Novitzky, senior vice president of athlete health and performance for the UFC and Hunter Campbell, the executive vice president, confirmed the announcement.
“It was a dirty move by them… There was no announcement yesterday,” White said when asked about the situation with USADA. “That was straight-up ‘scumbagism’, so that will all be addressed today, not by me. I’ll let Novitzky and our lawyer Hunter Campbell handle that. The you know what is about to hit the fan.”
Dana White Confirms a Third Party Company Will Continue Testing Athletes
Dana White didn’t confirm any specifics but confirmed that a third party company will continue conducting anti doping tests on the fighters.
“We would still pay an independent company,” White confirmed. “It’s the best way to do it. We have a standard that we’ve set here, but a lot of people are not happy with USADA… Our deal is up at the end of the year and we’re working on going in a different direction, especially after the dirty scumbag move they pulled yesterday.”
Since starting testing for the UFC, USADA has conducted more than 27 000 tests of the athletes over all these years.
Quotes taken from lowkickmma
How did you react to the news of USADA and UFC parting ways? Let us know in the comments.
Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
