Urijah Faber on T.J. Dillashaw’s USADA ban: ‘He’s a master of turning himself into the victim’

Bloodyelbow.com

Longtime UFC veteran Urijah Faber has spoken out regarding his former training partner T.J. Dillashaw for his two-year ban from MMA after testing positive for EPO.

It was revealed last month that Dillashaw, 33, had been banned for two years by USADA after being flagged up for EPO use. Faber was a training partner and coach of Dillashaw’s when they both trained at Team Alpha Male, but the two quickly turned to enemies when Dillashaw left to train with Duane Ludwig full-time.

Talking recently to MMA Tonight, Faber said he thinks Dillashaw will still have success in MMA when he returns because he is a cheater.

“He’s going to be a beast,” Faber said. “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. (Transcription via Aaron Bronsteter)

“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.”

Faber continued by saying that just like when Dillashaw left Team Alpha Male to train in Denver, he turned himself into the victim with his positive test for EPO by not showing any remorse or issuing a serious apology for using the substance.

“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.’”