Conor McGregor: natty or not?

Likely enhanced First simultaneous two-division UFC champion, the sport's biggest star and loudest self-advocate

Short answer. Verdict: likely enhanced. At the peak physique on this page, Conor McGregor is 5'9" (175 cm) and 190 lbs (86 kg) at roughly 12% body fat. That works out to an FFMI of 25.0, against the ~25 mark cited as the natural ceiling.

No official record settles this. What follows is opinion and analysis based on public numbers — how we judge.

The numbers (estimated)

Note. Every number below is a weigh-in figure or our own photo read, not a measurement. The reporting cited below attributes statements to unnamed officials; McGregor has made no direct public admission, and this page’s verdict is opinion built on that record.

Conor McGregor’s file split cleanly in July 2021, when his leg broke and his testing obligations paused.

Before and after the pool

Before: a tested two-division champion who wore his USADA numbers as a badge — “48 times. All natural animal” — at fight weights of 145-170 lbs, FFMI in the ordinary low-20s. Nothing in that era flags.

After: he withdrew from the anti-doping pool for two years of injury recovery — during which taking anything was within the rules — and returned visibly the biggest of his life in his mid-30s. New York Times reporting, as summarized by POST Wrestling, says UFC officials learned from McGregor himself that he stayed on anabolic steroids and growth hormone after the leg healed “because he liked how they made him feel.” On re-entering the pool he was flagged three times on whereabouts before eventually providing 32 negative samples, and an 18-month suspension followed the missed-test record.

Weighing it

The recovery-window use was legal and, per the reporting, real — injured athletes out of the pool may medicate as they and their doctors see fit. What the method weighs is what came with it: new lean mass arriving in his mid-30s, a return to testing marked by three whereabouts failures before the clean samples, and secondhand-but-published accounts of continued use past the medical window. Against that: the 48 clean tests of his championship era, 32 more recently, and the absence of any positive, ever.

Verdict

Likely-enhanced — for the post-2021 era, as opinion resting on published reporting of his own statements to officials plus the timeline; the championship years stand apart, tested and unflagged. A direct McGregor statement either way would finish the page — and he has never been shy.