Conor McGregor’s UFC ban is convenient – a return at the White House provokes new questions

Conor McGregor and controversy are words that have been tightly bound to each other since the Irishman’s emergence in the UFC. An inextricable link, perhaps, and those words look no closer to being untethered as of late Tuesday. Because it was then that news broke, suddenly, that McGregor had received an anti-doping ban.

McGregor’s aforementioned proclivity for controversy meant that some received this news with little more than an easy sigh and a half-raise of the eyebrows. Still, there was something alarming about seeing the words in white, block capitals, set against a black background. “CONOR MCGREGOR ACCEPTS 18-MONTH SANCTION FOR WHEREABOUTS FAILURES UNDER UFC ANTI-DOPING POLICY” (colours reversed, here).

Yet immediately, there were factors that softened the seeming scandal of this revelation.

Firstly, those words ‘whereabouts failures’. So, to be clear, McGregor has not, to any knowledge, failed a drug test. Instead, the former two-weight champion has been punished for missing three drug tests – all in 2024, on 13 June,19 September, and 20 September.

Some may take his absence as a sign of guilt, yet it is not that simple. The UFC’s own statement read as such: “Combat Sports Anti-Doping (CSAD) noted that he was recovering from an injury and was not preparing for an upcoming fight at the time of the three missed tests. McGregor fully cooperated with CSAD’s investigation, accepted responsibility, and provided detailed information that CSAD determined contributed to the missed tests.”

Indeed, McGregor had suffered a broken toe in June 2024, derailing his planned comeback against Michael Chandler, and he has not fought or even had a training camp since.

Secondly, McGregor’s 18-month ban is backdated to his final missed test, i.e. 20 September 2024. It would have been a two-year ban, but “taking McGregor’s cooperation and circumstances into account”, it was reduced. That conveniently means that, after initial gasps from some in the mixed martial arts fanbase, McGregor will be eligible to compete at the planned June event at the White House.

Many have expressed scepticism not only over the realism of this event, and particularly McGregor’s chances of being involved. Yet progress does seem to have been made; UFC president Dana White, a friend of Donald Trump, has met the US president, shared renderings of the Octagon on the South Lawn, and got Mr Trump to “sign off” on various factors. In fact, Mr Trump said this week that the fight card will take place on 14 June – his birthday, no less.

Yet, somehow, McGregor’s involvement looks less likely than the event itself. Firstly, it has been less than a year since a civil jury found in favour of a woman who had accused the fighter of rape in 2018, with McGregor found liable for assault. It must be noted that he denies all allegations against him, although an appeal against the verdict failed in July.

In any case, the 37-year-old claimed he was negotiating directly with the US government over a place on the White House card, rather than with UFC president White, and said his role on the card was “signed” and a “done deal”. There has been no word from Mr Trump’s office, while White has stressed that fighter negotiations will not begin until February.

One might have felt that McGregor, who announced his involvement while on Fox News, was simply trying to put pressure on the UFC. He did – in a move to be taken even less seriously, certainly –  demand payment of “$100m” and “100 US ‘Golden Visas’” on X.

Of course, his most significant move this month was to cease his pursuit of the Irish presidency, while labelling the eligibility criteria a “straitjacket”. But even the ‘significance’ of this decision could be challenged, given McGregor’s chances of success were so slim as to be almost imperceptible.

So, where does this leave McGregor? It leaves him still pining for a return to the UFC, four years on from his last fight, when he suffered a broken leg in the first round of a second consecutive loss. By next June, his absence from the Octagon will have reached the five-year mark.

With that in mind, in a sport that is relatively young and rapidly evolving, what reason is there to believe that McGregor would produce his bewitching brutalism of old at the White House, even if he were to feature?

At this point, the idea that McGregor will strut into the cage next June, in front of the White House, President Trump, and millions of viewers, and add another highlight-reel knockout to his record feels preposterous.

Of course, nothing is impossible, as McGregor showed during his prime. And the fact that his ban conveniently ends before the UFC’s planned White House event – provisionally, a sporting moment on an incomprehensible scale? That might yet open the door to another bewildering, but captivating, McGregor moment.