I have seen enough of T.J. Dillashaw over the course of his mixed martial arts career to know that what happened late last week—with Dillashaw leaving his longtime gym home of Team Alpha Male—was not surprising in the least.
I have written of Dillashaw’s intensity in the past. This trait in him is a terrifying and unique force of nature, built over a lifetime of living with brothers raised to be the same. As he told me in 2014, just days before he would violently wrest control of the bantamweight championship belt from Renan Barao, Dillashaw was raised to compete against his brothers. In everything. In life and in games and in fun. Everything was a competition. Everything was about winning:
For example: The Dillashaw family had two cars, and they would often split up. T.J. sometimes rode with his dad, and his brothers piled into their mom’s car. A simple drive from point A to point B morphed from a leisurely drive into a chance to score a victory over the rest of the family.
T.J. and his dad had to win. They had to be the first to arrive at their destination.
“I don’t care what it takes. We’re running red lights. We’re cutting them off,” Dillashaw tells Bleacher Report. “I think that’s where it all started. I had two brothers and competitive parents. They just bred me that way.”
And so it has been this way, and so it will always be. In a world of competitive men and women doing competitive things—one must be a little unhinged, after all, to willingly allow yourself to be punched in the face—Dillashaw well and truly stands apart.
It was on display the first day Dillashaw walked into Team Alpha Male. In a story relayed to me several years ago by team founder Urijah Faber and subsequently confirmed by Dillashaw, imagine this: Dillashaw, fresh out of college, walking into Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California, for his first day of mixed martial arts training.
He had been recruited by Faber to join the team while still in college, and they forged a bond early. On that first day at the gym, Dillashaw asked to spar with members of the team. Members who, if you’ll remember, had been training far longer than Dillashaw, because they’d had at least one day of training while Dillashaw had none.
And with no training, Dillashaw began sparring. Predictably, he was beaten handily by everyone he stepped in the ring with. And you’d probably expect him to quit when he realized he didn’t have the tools he needed to remain standing, much less competitive.
Only, that didn’t happened. What happened is that Dillashaw, furious with himself, kept going, kept taking a beating. And he cried, the kind of tears you cry not when you’re sad but when you’re pissed off and know there’s nothing you can do about it besides take your lumps and keep on going. He was so furious that tears streamed down his face.
So you can see that what has ultimately happened over in Sacramento with Dillashaw and Faber, well, it was fate. It was bound to happen from the first day Dillashaw stepped into that gym. Because Team Alpha Male is a tight-knit group of men and women who live mostly carefree and do hot yoga and hang out with each other and wear the bare minimal amount of clothing. They’ve got that California vibe.
And even though Dillashaw is a Californian and even though he fit in there for a while, things were pretty much always going to end up this way. Because Dillashaw, personable as he may be, has a drive for success that was always going to overshadow The House Urijah Faber Built. And he’s looking out for himself; his departure last year (along with Joseph Benavidez) from MMA Inc., the management company that is heavily intertwined with Alpha Male, was clear evidence that change was coming.
The thing is, though, that it’s OK. This is the way things needed to go. It is the natural order of things.
MMA gyms have long been built around a team-based idea where fighters—who generally cannot afford to hire the trainers, technicians and nutritionists needed to cater to their every whim—will instead pool their resources with other poor fighters. They can’t afford top-level training, perhaps, but by shouldering the cost with others, they’re able to afford what they could not on their own.
This has created some unique and legendary teams in the sport, among which Alpha Male rightly has a place. There was Miletich Fighting Systems and the Lion’s Den and Team Hammer House and now there is Team Alpha Male and Syndicate and American Top Team and others.
The simple fact is that these teams, as a concept, are outdated, especially when it concerns championship-level fighters. The modern athlete is not the same as Ken Shamrock or Tito Ortiz; the modern fighter does not need to share training with others.
T.J. Dillashaw is the best bantamweight in the world, at least for now, and what he needed is to be surrounded by a group of trainers entirely focused on him. It is all well and good to train with your friends—and Faber, Benavidez and the rest are some of the best people to spend time with in the sport, and Alpha Male’s tight-knit community is a good one—but to truly go to the next level, Dillashaw needed to focus on himself.
He needed to be selfish.
And thankfully for Dillashaw, he has that trait and the ability to put himself, his own needs and his own training in front of others. That is a good thing. Actually, it is great. Dillashaw is moving from Alpha Male to a place where his training will be paid for, instead of him being forced to open up his wallet to give Faber a cut. He’ll train at the MusclePharm facility in Denver, which is the most cutting-edge gym I can ever remember visiting during my time in the sport.
And he’ll do so at elevation with the weird, aloof coach that nobody seems to be able to get along with, but with whom he developed a close personal bond that turned him into a championship fighter.
We can sit back and blame Duane Ludwig all we want. He likely exacerbated Dillashaw’s leaving with his personal (and very strange) feud with Faber, a thing that was once a well-kept secret in the MMA world but has now bubbled over into public view. If Ludwig and Faber hadn’t turned into mortal enemies, perhaps Dillashaw would still be there.
But the honest truth about all of this is that this outcome, with Dillashaw leaving for greener pastures? It was set in motion from the first day he walked into Team Alpha Male. That family and that gym would satisfy him for a time, but he would never be satisfied enough to stay there if there were better opportunities on the horizon.
And while many mindless MMA fans will echo the words of their hero Conor McGregor, calling Dillashaw a snake in the grass (because repeating lines said by fighters makes you so very cool), it all boils down to one thing: Dillashaw is a competitor the likes of which we rarely see, and he is smart enough to put himself at the forefront of everything.
To make as much money as he can, without having to fork over a percentage of everything for the privilege of training himself.
To think of himself and his future and the future of his family.
To establish a legacy.
Mixed martial arts is not a team sport. It is an individual sport, filled with people seeking individual goals. Anyone who tells you otherwise has ulterior motives for doing so.
And Dillashaw, painful as it may be in the moment, made the correct decision to stake his flag in the ground and say, I am looking out for myself from this point forward. This is the way things are. And I have no doubt that Dillashaw and Faber will find themselves standing across the Octagon from each other in 2016, no matter what happens when Dillashaw faces Dominick Cruz. Win or lose, Dillashaw vs. Faber is a fight the UFC is absolutely salivating over, because it is a natural story.
The UFC didn’t even have to create drama; it is right there in front of it. It’s the kind of thing it dreams of, and you can bet it’s going to start pushing for it as early as possible. If Cruz is injured again (knock on wood), I’d be surprised if anyone but Faber replaces him. That’s how intriguing the story is.
And someday, perhaps Dillashaw and Faber will be close again. Maybe they still are, and we’re all being hoodwinked. I don’t think so, but we’ve seen it happen time and again.
But for now, this is the right move. It is the right move for Dillashaw, who will find the kind of focus and attention he was unable to secure in Sacramento. And it is the right move for Faber, a consummate businessman who now has another chance at one more big fight before he walks off into the sunset.
No matter how much it hurts, it’s the right thing, and it was inevitable.
The only surprise is that it took as long as it did.
Jeremy Botter covers mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com