UFC Bantamweight Champion Cody Garbrandt recently claimed in an interview that UFC 217 opponent TJ Dillashaw injured Chris Holdsworth during a sparring session at Team Alpha Male.
Dillashaw has since said that Garbrandt’s statements aren’t true, but Holdsworth has now come forward to say that he was indeed injured by the former UFC Bantamweight Champion.
“T.J. has always been a great fighter, he’s a great athlete, but he’s always had, I don’t know, some type of competitive feud with me ever since I came to the team. I don’t know if it was because of envy or jealousy or whatever it was, but I just kinda always brushed it off as him being competitive and being, just, ultra-aggressive. I was always up for the fight, but there was multiple occasions where T.J. got a little bit too aggressive, he went overboard in training. He’s kneeing you while we’re boxing. He’s throwing elbows while we’re doing jiu-jitsu. And I remember that instance that’s out in the public — yeah, it’s definitely true. I shot in on T.J. and I was on all fours, he was sprawled out and he kneed me on top of the head. And that was before The Ultimate Fighter. I remember I was kinda jarred up and everyone was watching, and I took like 30 seconds off and I kept going, I kept going through the rounds and I finished practice. But after that practice, I was concussed, and that was my first concussion. And it just kinda kept happening from there,” Holdsworth said on The MMA Hour.
Holdsworth is still a part of Team Alpha Male to this day, but he hasn’t stepped into the Octagon since defeating Chico Camus at UFC 173 in May of 2014.
The TUF champion would also go onto say that the former UFC Bantamweight Champion has been using "special" supplements.
“There was another instance leading up to the Chico (Camus) fight (in 2014), when he was getting ready for (Renan) Barao,” Holdsworth said. “And then it comes to where I hear he’s on some special supplements and stuff, and I just lost respect for the guy. There’s no hard feelings, it’s whatever it is, but he’s a cheater.”
UFC 217 takes place on Saturday, November 4 from Madison Square Garden in New York, New York with Michael Bisping and Georges St. Pierre headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
