UFC flyweight champion Henry Cejudo wants nothing to do with T.J. Dillashaw, who was recently suspended for EPO use.
Former UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw is currently under a lot of heat after rendering a positive result for EPO during a pre-fight test for UFC Brooklyn in January. As a result, the 33-year-old fighter was slapped with a two-year suspension by USADA, making him ineligible to compete until January 2021.
Now with a tainted name and reputation, Dillashaw’s fellow fighters like former opponent Henry Cejudo no longer want anything to do with him.
“I’ll never fight him again, dude,” Cejudo said in a backstage interview at UFC 236 on Saturday (via MMA Junkie). “And I’m not, it’s not like I’m scared or whatnot. I shook his hand, and, this is a sport. This isn’t baseball – you’re not hitting a baseball, there’s another human being, dude, so I want no part of him.
“It doesn’t matter what they’re going to offer me, what they’re going to give me. In my eyes, T.J., there’s bad intentions, literally. There’s no desire for me to want the fight. I’ve always been drug-free.”
Cejudo says he had received prior warnings about Dillashaw’s PED use, but chose to turn a blind eye at the time thinking they were mere rumors.
“I’ve heard on T.J., and I really never brought it up, he was on supposedly in the days prior to USADA,” Cejudo said. “Even Cody (Garbrandt), himself, was like, ‘Hey, watch out dude, he’s dirty.’
“People would come up to me, and I never really brought it up because I thought that that part of MMA is over, but I think once you find out he’s on it, it’s like, this dude ain’t playing fair.
“The Messenger” now has his sights set on Marlon Moraes, whom he will be facing for the vacant 135-pound title at UFC 238.
“Marlon Moraes, man, he’s a dead man walking,” Cejudo said. “That’s all I can tell you guys. He is a dead man walking. Every day, I cannot allow the UFC to have someone who looks like Mr. Clean and talks like Michael Jackson.
“I can’t have a schmo. I cannot have it.”
UFC 238 takes place on June 8th in Chicago. It will be co-headlined by a women’s flyweight title fight between Valentina Shevchenko and Jessica Eye.