Dana White says T.J. Dillashaw deserves respect for how he handled his EPO suspension

Dana White believes that T.J. Dillashaw's handling of his suspension is commendable.

Dillashaw was banned from competition for two years after testing positive for a banned substance, erythropoietin, found in the drug tests for his UFC flyweight championship bout against Henry Cejudo. Apart from the suspension, he was also stripped of his bantamweight belt.

The former two-time 135-pound champion owned up to his mistake and claimed that he was open to all the criticism and scrutiny from the MMA community in a video posted on his Instagram page.

The path to build his career back and gain the trust of his fans must have been a backbreaking journey and Dana White recognizes that. Speaking on My Mom's Basement with Robbie Fox about whether Dillashaw can overturn his reputation, White said:

"First of all, I assume he's one of the most tested guys in the company right now. USADA is probably all over him. But I think he made a mistake and handled it like a man."

The UFC president added:

"We've had a lot of guys throughout the history of this company who've been busted for steroids and handled it the exact opposite way. They handled it not like a man. Dillashaw did, he took on the chin and you got to respect him for that."

Watch Dana White's interview below:

T.J. Dillashaw returned to fighting after completing his suspension against Cory Sandhagen. He won the back-and-forth contest by split decision and landed a title shot against bantamweight titleholder Aljamain Sterling. He will have the opportunity to become a three-time champion at UFC 280 this Saturday.

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Dana White's hilarious reaction to T.J. Dillashaw's juice bar called Clean Juice

Aljamain Sterling has been quite vocal about T.J. Dillashaw's PED usage and has regularly belittled the former champion. Sterling has even claimed that he expects Dillashaw to be "souped up" in their upcoming championship clash.

Ironically, Dillashaw is the franchise partner of Southern California-based Clean Juice. It was co-founded by Landon and Kat Eckles in 2016 as the first and only USDA-certified organic juice bar franchise.

'Juiced' and 'being on the juice' are famous terms that fighters are labeled if they test positive for PEDs. Dana White was asked about Dillashaw's Clean Juice franchise in the same interview with Robbie Fox. White, clearly surprised, simply replied: "Does he really?"

Even as the host moved on with the next set of questions about the preceding fight on the card between Petr Yan and Sean O'Malley, White couldn't quite get that thought out of his head:

"What fight is that? I still had Clean Juice in my head. You f**ked me up on that one."