The former UFC bantamweight champion, T.J. Dillashaw, was plagued by a dislocated shoulder as he challenged for Aljamain Sterling’s title at UFC 280. Sterling stopped Dillashaw in the second round, as Dillashaw, due largely to his damaged shoulder, failed to deliver much offense. In his post-fight interview, Dillashaw apologized to his fellow UFC bantamweights for holding up the division.
“It popped out right away – I’ve got to apologize to the weight class. I kinda held it up. I completely blew my shoulder out at the end of April, as soon as I started getting ready for this, and probably dislocated a good 20 times during training camp.
Dillashaw Apologizes to Entire Bantamweight Division: “I Kinda Held It Up”
This is by far the toughest training camp I’ve been through because of that, emotionally. That’s why I was talking some s*** about his standup, because I didn’t want him to wrestle. I knew that was the case. I told the ref in the back before we came out that most likely my shoulder was going to pop out – if it does, I’ll get it back in – please do not stop it. Unfortunately, in that second round, I couldn’t push off my shoulder. So hat’s off to Aljamain for doing what he does, and great win.”
Whether Dillashaw should have been allowed to fight with the injury is up for debate. The fight took place in Abu Dhabi, which has no regulatory athletic commission. In such cases, the UFC acts as the de facto athletic commission to guarantee fighter safety. UFC president Dana White claimed that the UFC were not informed of the issue heading into the fight.
“I had no idea, so that’s a problem. How could the athletic commission know if he doesn’t tell us? You’ve got to tell us. He looked good. It’s not like he came in out of shape, or looked like he was injured, but yeah, that’s something he should have told us.”
Dillashaw did attempt to engage, but was ultimately unable to implement much of a strategy. “I just tried to control the hands the best I could. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to scramble to my feet because I couldn’t push off my arm. I thought I’d be able to get it back into the socket, but I wasn’t able to, so I knew I had to weather the storm the first round, come out and land some big shots.
I was just in my head. It’s a tough one to come into, and I apologize to the weight class, because it’s a stacked weight class and I took up a position. But I wasn’t going to wait another year to get a shot.”
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