Former UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw recently retired from the sport after failing to recapture his title against the current champ, Aljamain Sterling. Dillashaw, plagued by a shoulder injury, announced his retirement only recently, but refused to rule out a return to the Octagon in an interview with Food Truck Diaries.
“We’ll see how successful things turn out for me outside the cage and just how busy I am and what life looks like. I might be so busy — I already am kinda that busy — that I don’t even have time to come back. Even when I did come back, I had to put business in the back to deal with the fight.
T.J. Dillashaw Refuses To Rule Out MMA Return
That business is gonna pay me for the rest of my life where this fight’s only gonna pay me now. But when I was eight weeks out it was like, ‘Alright, sorry, guys. If you need to get ahold of me I’m not dealing with anything business related unless it’s gotta do with my fight.’”
Dillashaw is involved in a few health and cannabis businesses, which will provide the former champ with revenue without the risk of head trauma that continuing to fight at the ripe old age of 36 could entail.
Dillashaw also acknowledged that his five-year-old son won’t remember him in his prime, only remembering gruesome losses like that against Aljamain Sterling.
“No, [the plan wasn’t to retire after shoulder surgery]. Not really. It wasn’t at all. I remember doing interviews like, ‘This ain’t the end of me. I’m coming back.’ Then I talked to the doctor and just what’s actually going on with my shoulder and what the likelihood of it actually healing to its fullest [is]. Then it’s just kind of a snowball effect, too.
I have my 5-year-old son. The only fights he can really remember are my last two fights. Sandhagen, I blow my knee out. So, during fight camp, I’m not daddy. I am and I’m not, but I’m in Colorado for half the training camp, I’m traveling, I’m gone, he misses me when I’m gone. I get back, I’m on one leg, I’m laid up, and can’t be playing with him the way I’d like to. Then my ‘Aljo’ fight, I’m out in Abu Dhabi for two weeks, get shoulder surgery. He’s told me probably a good 10 times, ‘Dada, I don’t want you to fight again.’ Ah, f***. It digs deep, you know? Then the doctor’s appointment. It still is tough.”
Do you think this is the last we’ve seen from T.J. Dillashaw? Let us know in the comments.
