TJ Dillashaw, who once held the UFC bantamweight title, claims that he did not benefit from PED use. Dillashaw was famously stripped of his title and suspended when he tested positive for EPO use.
Speaking with fighter-turned-comedian Brendan Schaub, he elaborated on his position regarding this issue.
“f**king animal” TJ Dillashaw claims PED use had no benefit
“If I thought I got somewhere due to PEDs, I wouldn’t be calling out Cory Sandhagen. I wouldn’t be asking for the top five. I’m going to be a f*cking animal when I get back in the cage.”
If Dillashaw didn’t see a huge benefit from PED use, it begs the question of why exactly a professional athlete subject to frequent testing would take this kind of risk. PED use is nothing new in sports, but to claim that using performance enhancing drugs had no benefit is something of a contradiction in terms. The point, after all, of using these substances, is to enhance one’s performance.
Dillashaw is due to fight Cory Sandhagen this weekend in his comeback bout, his first since he was stripped of his title.
Dillashaw’s absence from competition since his first-round knockout loss at the hands of Henry Cejudo came coupled with the PED revelations. Many fight fans are curious as to exactly that kind of fighter Dillashaw is without EPO flowing through his veins, and Dillashaw appears anxious to prove himself once again.
Just as many fans and commentators doubt Dillashaw’s ability because of his previous PED use. It’s precisely this type of damage to a fighter’s reputation that makes one wonder why, if the PEDs did so little for Dillashaw, he bothered to take them in the first place. He acknowledged his newly acquired reputation in the Schaub interview:
“No matter what, it’s gonna be like that. I made the mistake. That’s like USADA’s weapon to use against you, to really slander you so nobody else wants to do this sh*t.
Those questions are valid because I f*cked up, I made the decision. But me being able to live with that, me owning up to it has made it f*cking easy.”
Of course, whether claiming that the EPO did not benefit him counts as “owning up to it” is up for debate.
What do you think? Do you believe a PED-free TJ Dillashaw has what it takes to return to the top of the bantamweight division? Has the UFC, and the particularly stacked bantamweight division, moved on from Dillashaw’s heyday? Let us know in the comments.
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