Aljamain Sterling blasts T.J. Dillashaw following his controversial split decision win over Cory Sandhagen at UFC Vegas 32.
T.J. Dillashaw has been praised by some people for ‘coming clean’ about his previous PED use, but Aljamain Sterling wants to remind everyone that the former two-time bantamweight champion wouldn’t have came clean had he not been caught in the first place.
Dillashaw tested positive for EPO following his first-round TKO loss to Henry Cejudo at UFC Fight Night 143 and, although he has served his two-year suspension and effectively owned up to cheating, Sterling isn’t letting the 35-year-old off the hook.
“I have no problem with fighting him,” Sterling, the current bantamweight champ, told Sirius XM’s Fight Nation in a recent interview (h/t MMA Fighting). “The only issue I really have with T.J. Dillashaw that pisses me off is that he keeps saying that he came clean. You didn’t come clean, you idiot! You got caught! You. Got. Caught. What universe are we living in? And the UFC is pushing this narrative like, ‘Oh, he’s changing his life and he came clean’ and T.J.’s saying, ‘Oh, I’m so glad and relieved that I came clean about it.’ I’m like, bro. You idiot.”
?”You didn’t come clean, you idiot. You got caught.” — Aljamain Sterling (@funkmasterMMA) explains why the narrative of TJ Dillshaw “coming clean” before his bout with Cory Sandhagen is frustrating to hear
Full int –> https://t.co/WqmpSFfPwe@RJcliffordMMA @DinThomas pic.twitter.com/RbT1NNVrtI
— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) July 27, 2021
“The people who are eating this up just drive me nuts because I’m like, bro, you didn’t come clean, you got caught, you dummy,” he continued. “There is a unique and clear difference between being caught and coming clean. You didn’t just on the fight say, ‘Hey man, I’ve gotta come clean about this, I cheated in that fight.’ No, no, no. You got caught because you pissed hot. Bro. This is the type of people that we deal with.”
Sterling is evidently not buying into the narrative that Dillashaw is a ‘changed man’, but former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping thinks the latter deserves respect for owning up to his PED use.
“T.J. Dillashaw has served a two-year suspension and he came out and he owned up to it, and I’ve got to say, I respect that,” Bisping said prior to Dillashaw’s split decision win over Cory Sandhagen this past weekend. “He served his two-year suspension. You may have different thoughts on that. Maybe you think he shouldn’t be here, he should be banned for life, whatever that is, but that doesn’t matter because the punishment was dealt, it was a two-year suspension, and he served that.”
Dillashaw’s win over Sandhagen saw the Ludwig Martial Arts product surge into the UFC’s top-three bantamweight rankings, landing a position at #2. He is hoping to fight the winner of Sterling vs. Yan II for the title.