The News Broke That Former UFC Bantamweight Champion TJ Dillashaw Has Been Hit With a Two-Year Suspension… Now His Arch-Nemesis and Former Teammate Cody Garbrant Has Responded… Unsurprisingly He’s Not Very Sympathetic…
TJ Dillashaw’s fall from grace surely has to be one of the most dramatic in UFC history. The former two-time bantamweight champion looked like he had the whole world opening up to him just a few months back, when he had a chance to become a double champion.
After getting knocked out by Henry Cejudo (admittedly after a stoppage many believed was early), Dillashaw failed a drug test and immediately vacated the title. Now it has emerged that he was popped for recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) aka EPO.
Widely regarded as one of the worst substances an MMA fighter can test positive for, Dillashaw’s cheating has been met with condemnation by the combat sports community. His nemesis and former teammate Cody Garbrandt has issued a series of responses, and he’s come down hard on TJ.
Test all his samples I bet for a fact more epo pops up, @TJDillashaw is a coward. Tj call me when that suspension is up! Scum bag https://t.co/LIjynev9VT
— Cody Garbrandt (@Cody_Nolove) April 9, 2019
Cheat
Basically, EPO increases an athlete’s endurance by stimulating red blood cell production. The more red blood cells in your body, the more oxygen can be delivered to the muscles. The use of EPO used to be undetectable before the introduction of special random testing, which appears to be how Dillashaw got popped.
Cody Garbrandt accused Dillashaw of cheating in the past and, furthermore, showing his Team Alpha Male teammates how to do it too. Now he’s come back and responded again:
“Test all his samples I bet for a fact more epo pops up,
@TJDillashaw is a coward. Tj call me when that suspension is up! Scum bag.”
Can’t wait to see who he blames for sticking the needles In him lol where’s bang at 😂😂 https://t.co/zPtcwtHLzK
— Cody Garbrandt (@Cody_Nolove) April 9, 2019
Enemy
Garbrandt is also a former UFC bantamweight champion. After a rapid and impressive rise, ‘No-Love’ ran into TJ Dillashaw’s fast hands twice, before getting knocked out stupidly by Pedro Munhoz. Vastly talented and a superb athlete, his fight IQ in his last three has been his downfall. He made a fair point that he’s only lost to athletes who have popped for PEDS. He wrote:
“All of my losses are from Fighters that have popped for PEDs
@ufc@usantidoping I can stand behind this when I say I’ll always be a drug free athlete, #1 reason is the believe I have in myself. #2 I respect the game Twitter rant over y’all have a good day.“Let’s make this clear I’m not saying my losses are a direct result of PED convicted fighters. I also fought like a dumb ass.”
Loyalty we both understand, I hope the family is well! 🙏🏻 https://t.co/V1cqKgRsrj
— Cody Garbrandt (@Cody_Nolove) April 10, 2019
Tarnished
Dillashaw’s reputation is going to be forever tarnished by this drug test failure. It’s actually quite sad because nobody wants to see a champion mess up like that. It’s bad for the sport and makes you wonder who else is doing it. You’ve got to respect the likes of Garbrandt and Michael Bisping who have slogged against cheaters throughout their careers and yet still got to the top.
Maybe there should be a promotion that just lets fighters use whatever they want. But if you’re meant to fight clean then that’s what you should do.
