T.J. Dillashaw requested referee Marc Goddard to not stop fight if his shoulder popped out during Aljamain Sterling fight

UFC 280's co-main event had an anti-climactic start as T.J. Dillashaw, unfortunately, hurt himself by popping his shoulder. It condemned his bid to become a three-time bantamweight champion against Aljamain Sterling as an improbable task.

A takedown by Sterling in round one resulted in an awkward landing for Dillashaw on his shoulder. Visibly in pain, the former champion was rendered helpless for the rest of the round as he struggled to see out till the bell.

Dillashaw was afforded no mercy from Sterling, but his supreme resilience earned him respite at the end of the first round. It also gave his team the chance to pop his shoulder back in and try to reset the fight from their perspective.

Watch the impressive effort from the Dillashaw camp:

However, it was not nearly enough as 'Funk Master' capitalized on the injury to rain down strikes on Dillashaw before the referee mercifully put an end to the contest.

MMA journalist Aaron Bronsteter tweeted out T.J. Dillashaw's admission of requesting the referee prior to the co-main event to not put an end to his fight if his shoulder popped out:

"Dillashaw admits that he informed Marc Goddard backstage that his shoulder would most likely pop out and if it did that he would pop it back in and to allow him to fight through it."

Check out Bronsteter's tweet below:

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T.J. Dillashaw reveals he injured his shoulder early on in fight camp

T.J. Dillashaw lost out due to a shoulder injury in the co-main event, but he revealed that the origins of the injury lay far before the fight.

He spoke to Daniel Cormier in his post-fight octagon interview and expressed his disappointment in himself, while also revealing that he endured the shoulder injury throughout his training camp:

"Yeah. It popped out right away. I've got to apologize to the weight class, I kinda held it up. I completely blew my shoulder out in the end of April as soon as I started getting ready for this and I probably dislocated it 20 times during training camp. This was by far the toughest training camp I've been through, because of that, emotionally."

Dillashaw also mentioned this as the reason he goaded Aljamain Sterling about his striking. It was all part of his strategy to provoke Sterling to keep the fight on the feet and not risk an immediate injury by going to the ground. Ultimately, it was all in vain except for a great display of heart proving him a worthy challenger.

Watch T.J. Dillashaw's complete octagon interview on YouTube: