Neal ElAttrache explains pointing Conor McGregor

Dodgers and Rams head staff doctor Neal ElAttrache was questioned by Major League Baseball investigators Friday following a detailed report by the New York Times that the famend surgeon and sports activities medication professional supported the therapeutic use of performance-enhancing medicine by UFC star Conor McGregor.

MLB spoke with ElAttrache, according to a particular person acquainted with the matter but not licensed to remark publicly. The league thought-about the interview informational, not an investigation. The NFL, Rams and Dodgers declined remark.

“I have spoken with MLB and I am very comfortable with the process that the league and I will complete to assure the public that I have followed every rule and regulation in my medical treatment of athletes without exception,” ElAttrache said in a assertion to the Los Angeles Times. “My record is completely clean, including in this case. I will leave it to MLB officials to provide any further comment as they see fit.“

ElAttrache performed surgery on McGregor in July 2021, inserting a rod, plates and screws into his left leg after the fighter broke his tibia and fibula during a bout against Dustin Poirier in Las Vegas.

McGregor’s recovery was lengthy and arduous. ElAttrache told the New York Times that while he did not prescribe steroids for McGregor, he referred him to a specialist who did. Furthermore, ElAttrache wrote a letter supporting McGregor’s request for a therapeutic use exemption from UFC drug policies.

“I felt it would be appropriate to consult other physicians with expertise in bone healing/bone metabolism,” ElAttrache told the paper via textual content. “I recommended the consultations but not the course of treatment.”

ElAttrache said he told McGregor to test with UFC drug testers about prescriptions the advisor gave him. “I purposely wasn’t involved with his evaluation by the consultant nor with prescribing medication,” ElAttrache said.

The exemption request was denied by USADA (the drug testing group the UFC used then), triggering a break up between the 2 organizations. McGregor withdrew from the UFC anti-doping program shortly thereafter and was no longer required to bear testing for banned substances.

ElAttrache, working primarily out of the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, has carried out elbow or shoulder surgical procedures on distinguished current and former Dodgers including Shohei Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw, Tony Gonsolin and Walker Buehler as nicely as former Rams stars Cooper Kupp and Cam Akers.

Among the a whole bunch of surgical procedures carried out over three many years by ElAttrache, his sufferers included the 4 2024 MLB Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winners — Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Chris Sale and Tarik Skubal. ElAttrache’s sufferers embrace 18 of 29 gamers who gained the MVP or Cy Young awards over the last 10 years.

Other distinguished athletes who grew to become his sufferers embrace former Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and star NFL quarterbacks Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Joe Burrow.

ElAttrache was a boxer long before he grew to become a famend surgeon and staff doctor. He attended Notre Dame, where organized boxing was first launched by Knute Rockne as a conditioning program in the Thirties. An intramural match identified as the Bengal Bouts was shaped and many years later ElAttrache grew to become a champion, profitable the 185-pound division in 1978.

Before world light-weight boxing champion Vasiliy Lomachenko returned from shoulder surgical procedure to defend his title in 2019, ElAttrache endorsed him against utilizing his left hook because he wasn’t mentally prepared to do so.

“When that arm goes into that position, the brain remembers that was the position where that dislocation occurred,” ElAttrache told the Los Angeles Times at the time. “It takes time to overcome that apprehension.”

It has taken McGregor 5 years since his injury to return to the octagon. He is scheduled to do so July 11 in a welterweight bout against Max Holloway at UFC 329 in Las Vegas as the main event of International Fight Week.

His recovery and startling bodily transformation hardly a yr after his injury grew to become a frequent matter on social media. Fellow UFC fighter Anthony Smith said on Michael Bisping’s “Believe You Me” podcast in November 2022 that the explanation McGregor pulled out of the UFC drug testing pool was apparent.

“There’s only one reason you would do that,” Smith said. “He’s looking jacked as s—. You keep seeing videos of him flexing in front of mirrors and screaming and he’s huge. He healed really fast. Like, really fast.”

On his show in December 2022, podcast host Joe Rogan famous McGregor’s spectacular physique and the USADA testing loophole.

ElAttrache told the New York Times that he stopped treating McGregor after steering the fighter to somebody who might acquire banned substances.

“I purposely wasn’t involved with his evaluation by the consultant nor with prescribing medication,” ElAttrache told the Times. He said “expert opinions” might help McGregor and “optimize his chance of solid union and healing of his fractures.”

Seeking the exemption, however, was seen by USADA and some UFC officers as McGregor attempting to discover a manner to use banned medicine. McGregor re-entered the drug-testing pool on Oct. 8, 2023, the same day UFC notified USADA that it might end the partnership.

Because McGregor had long been suspected of taking banned substances to revive his profession, the blended martial arts neighborhood reacted to the New York Times investigation with a measure of closure.

“OK, it’s confirmed now,” co-host Conner Burks on the favored MMA podcast “The Boys in the Back” said. “None of this came as a massive shock to me.”

“It seemed like the worst kept secret in combat sports,” co-host Eric Jackman said.

In a written response to a query posed by the New York Times, McGregor’s supervisor, Audie Attar, didn’t say whether or not McGregor had used banned substances. He said that “even with surgery there was a real risk Conor might not walk again, a high likelihood he would face numerous lifelong side effects that would limit his mobility and serious doubts he would ever return to the octagon.”

Attar said McGregor withdrew from the UFC drug-testing pool “to focus fully on his recovery” under the care of “his team of world-renowned physicians.”

“They oversaw a combination of a gruesome surgery, intense physical therapy and appropriately prescribed medicines,” Attar said. “It is an unfathomable breach of health and privacy protections that my client’s purported personal medical records would be disclosed.”

McGregor tried to return to preventing in June 2024, but a scheduled bout against Michael Chandler was canceled because McGregor broke a toe during training.

Combat Sports Anti-Doping officers have been unable to find McGregor for testing on the day the struggle was canceled, and he missed checks on two subsequent events. Under the UFC Whereabouts Policy, the three failures constituted an anti-doping violation equal to a failed drug check.

The UFC suspended McGregor in October 2025 for 18 months because of testing violations. The suspension expired in June, clearing him to compete.

Times workers writers Bill Shaikin, Sam Farmer and Gary Klein contributed to this report.