Urijah Faber already has his next fight booked under the UFC banner, but that doesn’t mean he’s not targeting a fight with former UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw.
The former WEC champion and multi-time UFC title challenger is slated to meet Ricky Simon in a bantamweight bout at the upcoming UFC Sacramento event. Dillashaw got a lot of flack for leaving Team Alpha Male in 2015, which is owned by Faber, for a more lucrative contract to train at Team Elevation in Colorado.
When Cody Garbrandt won the bantamweight title at UFC 207, it set up a rivalry fight for one of the hottest feuds in mixed martial arts (MMA) over the past couple of years. The two fighters had been jawing at each other publicly since Dillashaw left Alpha Male. Dillashaw knocked out his former training partner to win the UFC bantamweight title at the UFC 217 pay-per-view (PPV) event in New York from Madison Square Garden.
In their rematch, Dillashaw scored a first-round knockout victory over Garbrandt in the main event of UFC 227. Faber made it known during a recent interview with Ariel Helwani that he’s more than willing to wait in order to fight Dillashaw in the near future. Dillashaw recently accepted a two-year suspension from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
The ex-bantamweight king was caught with EPO in his system and is ineligible to compete until January 2021. Despite the setback, Faber doesn’t appreciate fighters trying to get an advantaged. That adds another layer to their bad blood:
“So if he comes back it will be, I guess, a year and a half, that’s not that long. We will have to see how that pans out,” Faber said (H/T to MMAMania). “The guys that don’t cheat, the guys that don’t do EPO, and HGH, and micro-dosing, testosterone or whatever the hell the kids are doing these days have a better longevity. Joints, just your body intact.
“You are operating as your body is supposed to. For me, I think that is part of the reasons why I have been in the top my entire career, the top echelon. The top ten, the top two, the top three, the top one my entire career. So, I feel good.”
”We will have to see at that point,” Faber concluded. “When you think of big fights for me in the weight class, Kron [Gracie] was exciting because there is a lot of hype around him right now and the history of his family. But, there is no history like the T.J. Dillashaw history that’s for sure.”
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