T.J. Dillashaw relinquished his UFC bantamweight championship belt on March 20 after failing a drug test leading up to his flyweight super-fight against Henry Cejudo in January in Brooklyn. The New York State Athletic Commission quickly handed out a one-year suspension, and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency followed this week by coming down hard: a two-year ban for EPO use.
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Dillashaw will not be back in the cage until January 2021 at the earliest. By then, he will be nearly 35 years old. A one-time poster boy for UFC now enters a long period of embarrassing exile from which his career may never recover.
Dillashaw, who normally fought at the bantamweight limit of 135 pounds, needed to cut an additional 10 pounds to get down to 125 for the flyweight bout against Cejudo. Dillashaw bragged about how mathematical and easy a weight cut he had with the help of nutritionist/strength coach Sam Calavitta, and ESPN published photos of his intense regimen of dietary supplements. Members of Dillashaw's team have since made statements denouncing his PED use. None of it worked anyway: Cejudo knocked out Dillashaw in 32 seconds.
What's more, USADA decided to re-test an earlier Dillashaw sample, which also came back positive for EPO. (This begs the question: Why doesn't USADA conduct the "special" test for EPO on a consistent basis?) Cody Garbrandt, who lost the bantamweight title to Dillashaw in November 2017 and was again knocked out in their 2018 rematch, went into attack mode.
Garbrandt and teammate Uriah Faber accused Dillashaw of PED use as early as 2016. In 2017, before their first fight, Garbrandt spoke to "Outside the Cage" about Dillashaw's dishonesty being a reason why he left Dillashaw's Team Alpha Male.
The following year, Garbrandt made further remarks implicating Dillashaw in the use of EPO.
Dillashaw is not the first nor will he be the last UFC star to be caught using PEDs. Light heavyweight champion Jon Jones continues to test positive for a substance that for some reason won't leave his system. Former lightweight champion Sean Sherk was stripped of his title and suspended multiple times for PED violations.
But Dillashaw's legacy has been damaged badly. Just a few months ago he was a top-10 pound-for-pound fight, looking to join the exclusive "Champ Champ" club. Will two years on the sideline be too much to overcome, or will Dillashaw return to fight his way back to the top of the sport?