Cody Garbrandt Wants Another Shot at T.J. Dillashaw: ‘We All Knew What He Was Doing’

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Cody Garbrandt hasn’t forgotten about T.J. Dillashaw.

Dillashaw is still in the midst of serving a two-year suspension after testing positive for recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) in relation to his loss to Henry Cejudo in a flyweight title bout at UFC Brooklyn in January 2019. As a result of that failed drug test, Dillashaw was stripped of the UFC bantamweight belt, a crown he won by defeating Garbrandt.

Dillashaw reclaimed 135-pound gold with a second-round TKO of Garbrandt in their first meeting at UFC 217 and knocked out “No Love” in the opening frame of their rematch at UFC 227 in August 2018.

“That’s a fight I’d like to get back,” Garbrandt said following his knockout of Raphael Assuncao at Saturday’s UFC 250 post-fight press conference. “We all knew what he was on, we all knew what he was doing. It took so many times for him to skate by USADA, unfortunately. But he’s serving his sentence. He’s gonna always have to live with that the rest of his life. He’s got a child that he has eyes on him that knows his dad was a cheater. The whole world looked up to him.

“It’s sad he has no confidence that he has to use those kind of aides to be a fighter. But we’ll see. I’m gonna be at the top. He works his way back up there, open doors let’s get it.”

At his peak, Dillashaw was involved in a bitter split from Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California. That made things more personal for Garbrandt, who has been known to let emotions get the best of him in his UFC losses. Though “No Love” implied that the camp was aware of Dillashaw’s habits, he declined to go into further detail regarding his former training partner’s transgressions.

“I don’t really want to get into that. I feel like that ship has sailed,” Garbrandt said. “That was a big burden a lot of us. The kid grew up in Team Alpha Male tutelage. It is what it is. That’s behind us. He’s serving his sentence for his wrongdoings. Karma always comes to those who’s doing bad things. He got his karma.”

However, Garbrandt would love to see more stringent blood testing from USADA to detect the use of banned substances like EPO. According to the World Anti-Doping Agency, EPO use is initially detected through a blood test and is later confirmed through a urine sample. However, WADA states that urine tests alone can detect the presence of recombinant EPO.

“I just wish USADA would [do more tests]. We do urine samples, but do we do blood samples? I haven’t got a knock on my door for blood forever,” Garbrandt said. “How do you detect EPO? Let’s do more invasive. If we’re gonna go all-in on this and be a leading standard on drug-free athletes, we’re gonna preach that, let’s do that.

“Let’s have those .. I don’t know when the last time I had a phlebotomist come and jab a needle in my arm for USADA to test us. I don’t need to cheat and never will have to cheat but if you’re gonna eliminate it, make it more strict, more invasive."