USADA Fires Back at UFC with Bold Response to Legal Threat

USADA just burned their bridge with the UFC.

USADA CEO Travis Tygart has responded to the UFC following the promotion's Oct 12 news conference at the UFC Apex, concerning USADA's Oct 11 statement.

Tygart/USADA's statement besmirched the UFC after insinuating a desire to circumvent anti-doping regulations when it came to Conor McGregor. This sparked outrage as UFC CEO Dana White called it a "dirty scumbag move."

UFC's Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell alleged that USADA used Conor McGregor "as a vehicle" to misrepresent what had occurred over the past several months, "What I can categorically tell you is, what USADA has put out in the last 48 hours couldn't be further from the truth," he remarked.

"I think it's a self-preservation tactic, I think it will ultimately fail. ...What they've done to [McGregor] is disgusting," Campbell exclaimed. "And for an entity that holds themselves out to have a level of honor and integrity, using him as a media vehicle to advance a fake narrative is disturbing, disgusting, and I think they have some legitimate liability that they should be concerned about."

RELATED: USADA Announces Split From UFC, Points Finger at Conor McGregor & Joe Rogan

In a statement to ESPN on October 13, Tygart addressed the UFC's statements:

"We stand by our statement and our credibility," Tygart insisted. "...Our insistence, and public insistence, that the six-month rule apply to all athletes, including Conor McGregor, be in place --- that clearly upset them... 

"...They don't like having someone else have influence, I guess, that the rules should apply to every athlete. No athlete is above the rules --- Even if you're a publicly traded company and you might stand to make $100 million at the end of the fiscal year, or something." (h/t ESPN)

Tygart insisted that USADA's integrity is above all else:

"All we have is our integrity, and everything else is secondary," Tygart continued. "Whether it's Lance Armstrong, whether it was [the] BALCO [scandal], we're going to do the right things for the right reasons. They're not always popular. And certainly, we've seen sports organizations over the years that don't like the stands that we take. And here we go again." (h/t ESPN)

If the relationship between the UFC and USADA was "tenable" before, it's certainly worse now.

Stick with MMA Knockout for more daily coverage of the UFC and MMA

Follow MMA Knockout on Twitter and Facebook.