Say what you will about Conor McGregor, the former UFC champion is a clean fighter. That should go a long way considering today’s fight game is riddled with bad drug tests and picogram problems under the rule of United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
Luckily, McGregor isn’t the only superstar that has stayed away from USADA’s doghouse over the years. Some of the biggest names in the sport have been tested dozens of times only to have their results come back clean.
That’s according to UFC vice president of athlete health and performance Jeff Novitzky, who posted the following list via Twitter showing which fighters have turned in the most USADA samples while never testing positive for a banned substance:
- Conor McGregor – 49 samples (including 11 for his Floyd Mayweather superfight)
- Daniel Cormier– 45
- Rafael dos Anjos– 41
- Holly Holm– 39
- Stipe Miocic– 38
- Robbie Lawler– 37
- Amanda Nunes– 36
- Jose Aldo– 36
- Tyron Woodley– 35
As you can see, McGregor is the most tested athlete under the USADA program who has never popped for a banned substance. This does include 11 collected samples for his 2017 boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr., but it’s still pretty amazing that “Notorious” leads this list considering he’s fought just four times inside of the Octagon since 2015, which is the year that UFC forged its ongoing partnership with USADA.
It should also be noted that every name on this list is a current or former UFC champion. This is significant in the fact that the very best fighters in the sport are consistently coming up clean on these USADA tests. Current UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is the obvious outlier, but we all know his picogram-sized situation.
While USADA has produced up-and-down results over the past four years, the doping agency is doing everything in its power to catch up to today’s science and clean up the sport of MMA as quickly as possible. This list is certainly a good reference to look back on, but hopefully more high-profile names can be added moving forward.