Chael Sonnen thinks Conor McGregor’s anti-doping policy suspension isn’t exactly what it looks like.
Make no mistake, Sonnen believes the 18-month suspension McGregor is serving (retroactive to September 2024, which makes him eligible to compete again by March 2025) is warranted, but he wonders if the former two-division UFC champion gamed the system to avoid a more costly suspension and possibly a more severe public embarrassment.
Sonnen is no stranger to spreading gossip when it comes to athlete drug test drama. Famously, Sonnen has oft-repeated a story that UFC star Jon Jones once hid under a cage to avoid a drug test, a tale that was later corroborated by Jones (though Jones claims it was because he would have tested positive for marijuana, not a performance-enhancing drug). He’s now suggesting McGregor also chose flight over fail.
“Every dog gets one bite,” Sonnen said on YouTube. “Everybody gets a pass. It’s quite literally the reason why they give you three strikes in a calendar year. Everybody’s allowed to be wrong. Everybody’s allowed to be heavy sleeper, just for example. Maybe they come at some part of the day—whatever the excuse might be, you don’t even need to share it. Three is kind of a lot in a 12-month period when your one and only job is to tell them where you are. That’s all that you’re being accused of. You’re not being accused of a substance here, you’re not being accused of anything other than clerically, administratively. Three times in a 12-month period you did not tell us where you were. And for somebody that has as elaborate of a team, I believe they did tell you where they were. I believe the agents were at the right place. This very thing happened with the notorious story of Jon Jones in the ring. That’s a completely true story. They had showed up to where he said that he was, he was not ready for a test, and he went under the ring. That’s a very true story, it’s not folklore.
“And my envision of what happened here with Conor is something very similar. I’m guessing, but I’m just telling you I believe having this lived this life, I believe they did have his whereabouts. I believe it was accurately updated. I believe he did purposefully not allow them to test him. That’s my belief. I’m not overly upset about it. I’m not overly pointing the finger at Conor. I’m sharing, as a fellow scumbag, some of the psychology that goes in to living that life and trying to stay one step ahead. It’s a great gig until it’s up.”
Adding to Sonnen’s drug-testing experience is his own sordid history with performance-enhancing drugs, which he has admitted to using and for which he has tested positive for on multiple occasions. McGregor’s suspension is not due to positive tests, but rather a trio of whereabouts violations in which he was scheduled to be tested but could not be found.
It’s of Sonnen’s opinion that while McGregor has a busy lifestyle, an athlete of his stature would have their schedule regimented in such a way that there shouldn’t be any way he would accidentally get his signals crossed with testers.
“There is not a make-believe world where Conor’s schedule was so hectic and so busy they just forgot to update it,” Sonnen said. “And his life would be more hectic and more busy than most can relate to. He could be in three different states in the same week. He could be in two different countries in the same weeks. He could be on two different continents in the same week. By the way, we know, because we’ve seen it. Wherever he goes, a camera goes, whether it was on TV working or he brought us something on social media, this is a guy that’s on the move. His whereabouts would be more complicated than somebody else, but you still have a team that is doing them.
“He’s not just getting on airplanes out of the blue. The team is arranging for him to be on an airplane. As a matter of fact, how is he going to get to the plane? The team would help to arrange that transportation. What hotel is he going to stay at? Conor doesn’t land and then ask for a recommendation of where to stay, just for example. Those things are all set by the team.”
If anything, Sonnen imagines McGregor’s handlers are just as confused as everyone else as far as how their client could miss multiple scheduled drug tests. The duration of the suspension has also raised eyebrows, with McGregor set to be eligible to compete in March, three months before the UFC White House card in June that he has openly campaigned to be a part of.
“From Conor’s team’s perspective, there’s not somebody over at Team Conor that’s going to be fired,” Sonnen said. “There’s not somebody that was un-diligent. There’s not somebody that made a mistake, I don’t guess. I’m guessing nobody will be fired and nobody will be brought to your attention and nobody did make a mistake. I’m guessing that they all filled the paperwork out accurately. The accurate airlines, the accurate city, state, and country, and the accurate hotel.
“But they are going to be asking, ‘Why?’ They’re going to be turning to their client saying, ‘Why? How did they not find you? How did they not test you? How did this happen on this date and then four months later after we discussed it, it happened again the very next day?’ That’s one of those spots. I don’t know how Conor will handle it.”
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