Former friend and Team Alpha Male coach Urijah Faber probably knows more about exiled ex-champion TJ Dillashaw than any other fighter in UFC, which may explain why Dillashaw is not interested in settling his score with “The California Kid.”
“He doesn’t want to fight me,” Faber told Submission Radio. “He’s been working hard to regain his [image], try to keep his nose clean and try to tell his side of the story or whatever the deal is of his cheating scenarios. And he doesn’t need the grave digger bringing up the fucking bones of the last 10 years of him being a creep and a POS. So, I don’t think it’s enticing for him on that front. And for me, I would do it because there would be a bounty on his head, and probably vice versa.”
Dillashaw was suspended and stripped of his title after testing positive for EPO, but former teammate Cody Garbrandt insists the former champ had been cheating for years prior to getting popped. They eventually went to war inside the cage with Dillashaw emerging victorious.
Which led to talk about a potential Faber fight.
“Sean Shelby was asking, hey, when [are you] gonna fight T.J.,” Faber continued. “And [Sean] said, oh, it sounds like his camp isn’t interested in that fight. And I’m like, okay. And then I talked to Tiki who manages T.J., and he told me kind of behind the scenes that they’d offered him something, but then kind of said they couldn’t do that, blah, blah, blah.”
Dillashaw ended his two-year suspension by defeating top contender Cory Sandhagen, a five-round decision that may have been enough to give him the winner of Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan, who rematch for the 135-pound strap in October.
“I always kind of avoided the idea of fighting (Dillashaw) because I just didn’t like the dramatic part of it,” Faber said. “It would just be like, we already have enough freakin’ drama in our lives, and then you have to rehash this and drama that, and you know, that becomes a whole dramatic thing. Now, would it be an intriguing match-up and would it be a great storyline? Absolutely. I would only do that if it was a payday that also excited me.”
Faber, 42, has not competed since getting planished by Yan at UFC 245.