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This weekend sees former UFC bantamweight champ T.J. Dillashaw return to the octagon for the first time in well over two years as he takes on Cory Sandhagen. The fight will be T.J. Dillashaw's biggest challenge in some time.
If T.J. Dillashaw beats Cory Sandhagen, he could position himself for a UFC bantamweight title shot – but can the former kingpin really regain his title?
It’s a question that can easily be argued either way, based on the plenty of issues surrounding T.J. Dillashaw’s comeback this weekend.
So with this considered, here are three reasons why T.J. Dillashaw can regain his UFC bantamweight title and two reasons why he can’t.
#3. T.J. Dillashaw has already regained the UFC bantamweight title once before
The main thing that usually stands against a former UFC champion regaining their title is the fact that they lost it in the first place. When a champion falls inside the octagon, it often leaves an indelible mark both psychologically and physically.
Over the course of UFC history, few fighters have ever been able to regain a UFC title after losing it inside the octagon – with only greats like Randy Couture and Georges St-Pierre pulling it off.
In the UFC’s bantamweight division, two fighters have managed to do this – Dominick Cruz and T.J. Dillashaw, who lost his title to Cruz before taking it back from the man who beat ‘The Dominator,' Cody Garbrandt.
The fact that T.J. Dillashaw was able to achieve this means, unlike many former champions, he knows exactly what it’s like to climb back to the top after being knocked off the summit of the mountain.
It's also worth remembering that in his most recent title run, T.J. Dillashaw never actually lost his crown inside the octagon.
The last image that UFC fans have of T.J. Dillashaw would indeed be of him protesting the stoppage in his fight with Henry Cejudo – a clash that saw him knocked out in under a minute by a wild flurry of strikes. But that fight was not for Dillashaw's UFC bantamweight title.
Instead, Dillashaw lost his title after a positive test for EPO saw him suspended for two years. Is being stripped of a title any better than losing it? On the face of it, no, but from a psychological standpoint, Dillashaw was never beaten – and probably still views himself as the champion.
Essentially, T.J. Dillashaw has already proven that he's mentally strong enough to regain a UFC title after losing it – meaning there's nothing to suggest he won't do it again.
#2. T.J. Dillashaw essentially has no weaknesses in his game
Perhaps the biggest reason that makes T.J. Dillashaw capable of regaining the UFC bantamweight title is that even at the highest level of the UFC, he’s an unusually brilliant fighter.
The UFC bantamweight division is filled with hugely talented fighters right now, from current champion Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan to the likes of Rob Font and T.J. Dillashaw’s opponent this weekend, Cory Sandhagen. However, it’s fair to say that all of them have known weaknesses.
Sterling’s striking is improving, but it remains a work in progress. Yan, Font and Sandhagen all have big question marks around their ground games, and have arguably never been fully tested there.
T.J. Dillashaw, on the other hand, essentially has no weaknesses in his game. When he arrived in the UFC in 2011, he came in renowned as a high-level collegiate wrestler. That grappling took him to the finals of TUF 14, and in his early UFC days, it earned him wins over fighters like Walel Watson and Vaughan Lee.
By 2014 though, Dillashaw’s work with renowned coach Duane ‘Bang’ Ludwig had enabled him to develop a deadly striking game based around combinations, forward pressure and serious knockout power. In hindsight, it’s understandable how he was able to defeat then-UFC champ Renan Barao on two occasions.
If you’re looking for any holes in Dillashaw’s overall game, it’s practically impossible to find them. He’s never been out-grappled, and even the great Dominick Cruz was unable to outstrike him, winning a contentious decision in their 2016 clash.
Some fans might question Dillashaw’s chin after he was knocked out by Henry Cejudo, but the truth is that the knockout was more likely to have been caused by a nasty weight cut. After all, Dillashaw famously survived a huge shot from known knockout artist Cody Garbrandt at UFC 217 – and came back to win the fight.
So on paper, at least, T.J. Dillashaw probably has the best overall game in the UFC bantamweight division right now, and the least weaknesses too. In that sense, he’s definitely capable of regaining the UFC bantamweight title.
#1. The UFC bantamweight title picture is highly fluid right now
T.J. Dillashaw’s goal of regaining the UFC bantamweight title is definitely not going to be easy, but it would be even harder to achieve if the UFC had a dominant bantamweight champion right now. But the truth is that the promotion doesn’t.
That’s to take nothing away from current champion Aljamain Sterling, despite the way he won the title. There’s no disputing that ‘Funk Master’ is a genuinely brilliant fighter and a worthy titleholder.
However, since T.J. Dillashaw vacated the title in early 2019, the UFC bantamweight title has been fluid, to say the least.
Then-UFC flyweight champ Henry Cejudo claimed the vacant title by upsetting top contender Marlon Moraes, but after just one defense against Dominick Cruz, who hadn’t fought since 2016, ‘Triple C’ decided to step away from the UFC.
Petr Yan then won the vacant title but defeated Jose Aldo, who was coming off a loss. He then dropped it in his very first defense, albeit via disqualification, to Sterling.
That means that the title picture in the UFC’s bantamweight division is more fluid than it’s ever been – suggesting that none of the division’s top fighters are close to unbeatable right now. And that should make for the perfect climate for Dillashaw to return.
If T.J. Dillashaw can beat Cory Sandhagen this weekend, then he would almost certainly be in a position to fight the winner of the upcoming Sterling vs. Yan rematch – and he’d most likely be confident of unseating either man to regain the title, too.
#2. There are questions hanging over T.J. Dillashaw after his PED use
The biggest question hanging over T.J. Dillashaw right now is undoubtedly his PED use and the effects that it might have on his upcoming return.
Dillashaw was suspended in 2019 for the use of the infamous performance enhancer EPO – the drug that was made famous by disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong. And unlike other UFC fighters who were busted by USADA, the former bantamweight champion didn’t attempt to proclaim his innocence, instead admitting to his mistake.
However, the big question isn’t whether Dillashaw used EPO – we know he did. The question is whether he simply turned to EPO for an advantage in his first-ever fight at 125lbs or whether he’d used the drug to gain an edge over opponents like Renan Barao and Cody Garbrandt in his UFC bantamweight title bouts.
After all, he was accused on multiple occasions by former teammates-turned-rivals like Garbrandt and Urijah Faber of PED abuse – with Garbrandt outright stating in 2017 that Dillashaw was “on everything.”
Dillashaw will surely be clean for his upcoming fight with Cory Sandhagen, and if he only turned to them for help in his UFC flyweight title bout with Henry Cejudo, then naturally, you’d expect him to look fine.
However, if his whole UFC career was built upon PEDs – and there is, sadly, a chance that it was, as questions hang over any fighter who tests positive – then it’s hard to imagine Dillashaw looking as good as he once did.
And if he can’t look like he did at his best in 2014 or 2018, then the likelihood of T.J. Dillashaw regaining his UFC bantamweight title is low.
#1. T.J. Dillashaw has been on the shelf for too long
It’s always tricky for a fallen UFC champion to regain their title in the octagon. However, to win the championship after returning from years on the shelf would take a superhuman effort.
T.J. Dillashaw hasn’t fought in the UFC for over two years now, dating back to January 2019. He hasn’t won a fight in the octagon since his August 2018 win over Cody Garbrandt.
Even if he can overcome Cory Sandhagen this weekend, it’s unlikely that T.J. Dillashaw fight for the UFC bantamweight title until 2022 – meaning it’ll probably be four years since his last UFC bantamweight title bout.
But with two-and-a-half years on the shelf behind him, even beating Sandhagen this weekend will be an astronomic task for Dillashaw to pull off. Sure, the former champion has probably never stopped training during that period, but there’s a massive difference between training and actually fighting.
We’ve seen countless numbers of fighters return from years on the shelf – Alexander Gustafsson, for instance, or Urijah Faber – and they never quite looked the same as they did during their prime years. To compete at the top level in the UFC takes something special, and it’s easy to lose that when you’re not inside the octagon.
So to expect even a great fighter like T.J. Dillashaw to return from such a long time away and regain the UFC bantamweight title within a couple of fights seems like a step too far. Exceptionally few fighters would be able to achieve such a feat, and Dillashaw may not be one of them.
