When TJ Dillashaw revealed that he’d failed a USADA drug test earlier this year, many were surprised. Urijah Faber was most certainly not.
Far from it in fact and as a result, Faber even agrees that Dillashaw will indeed be back better than ever. “He’s going to be a beast,” Faber told MMA Tonight. “He’ll put the scientist’s cap back on and figure out how he can have an advantage. That’s the way he plays. It’s one thing if people just cheat. It’s another thing if they cheat and they’re really intelligent about it and they work really hard and they have natural gifts and that’s the scenario here.
“If you’re going to be a cheat, you may as well be a cheat like that. Now, do I think he’ll be clean? Will there be after effects from whatever he’s been doing all these years? Probably, he’ll have made some gains on that. There’s no doubt that he’ll be a tough guy and people will forget about it like all the other guys who’ve been caught cheating.”
News about Dillashaw’s drug test broke in March, just two months after he’d been finished in only 32 seconds by Henry Cejudo. Initially, Dillashaw refused the result but weeks later, released a video statement accepting his guilt. Faber was once Dillashaw’s teammate, standing by his side until TJ’s bitter exit from Team Alpha Male. Since then, Faber and Cody Garbrandt have regularly accused Dillashaw before finally being vindicated by this recent test.
Considering their prior warnings though, Faber is all the more disappointed that Dillashaw escaped a violation for so long. “When you have somebody that cheats in a sport like this, not only is it dangerous, especially when they have a temper in practice, it’s unfair. They’re also lying because they know they are doing something deliberately underhanded. They’re also stealing from people that don’t do it, like myself, [or] a guy like Cody Garbrandt. That’s millions of dollars, massive opportunities, that’s physical health.
“T.J.’s a master of turning himself into the victim. Like when he kind of got bought off to go and fight for Team Elevation originally - which is cool, go ahead and do that. Then when Conor called him out and called him a snake . . . somehow he turned that around to where he was a victim. . . He became the victim there and now he’s ‘facing the adversity of getting caught doing EPO’ which is like the height of PED use.
“There’s no remorse or anything, so that’s kind of hard to see, to be honest. I wish he would just come out and say, ‘Look, this is what I had. I stole, I cheated, I lied.’”
“It’s unfortunate, man,” Faber concluded. “People are cheating in a sport that’s very dangerous and there’s a lot to gain. And I get it. Rich and famous now, you sold out for that. Great. He’s gonna sit out for another year and half and people will forget about it. But at the end of the day, it’s just not right.”
Regardless of their past, not many will be rushing to debate Faber’s comments in this particular case.
Credit to both Aaron Bronsteter and MMA Fighting for the quotes used in this piece.
