According to T.J. Dillashaw, the UFC went all in to try and make Cody Garbrandt the next big thing in mixed martial arts.
In 2016, Garbrandt climbed to the top of the bantamweight mountain, scoring a sensational victory over Dominick Cruz to claim his first UFC gold. Unfortunately, ‘No Love’ couldn’t quite keep up the momentum. Garbrandt proceeded to lose five of his next six bouts—and while he’s shown flashes of his old self with a couple of solid wins against Trevin Giles and Brian Kelleher, a loss against Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC 300 landed him right back in the loss column.
According to T.J. Dillashaw, who fought Garbrandt in back-to-back bouts between 2017 and 2018, the UFC put some big into trying to make ‘No Love’ the next Conor McGregor.
“[Garbrandt] had an amazing fight against Cruz…The UFC’s like, ‘Hey, this is our next big horse,” Dillashaw said on The Casuals MMA podcast. “Let’s put some money into him’. So they marketed the sh*t out of him, put him in a bunch of commercials, got some celebrities behind him.
“From what I was told, they put like $6 million into marketing him before our fight…So he went to massive stardom fast. They wanted him to be the next Conor McGregor.”
😳 💰 TJ Dillashaw says that the UFC invested $6 million into promoting Cody Garbrandt after his win over Dominick Cruz.
They expected him to become the “next Conor Mcgregor”.
🎥 The Casuals MMA pic.twitter.com/oW3Sas7qG2
— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight) November 8, 2024
Garbrandt is 3-6 in his last nine fights. He was scheduled to return at UFC Vegas 100 on November 9, but an injury forced him out of his bout with Miles Johns.
T.J. Dillashaw Confirms He is Officially Retired From MMA
As for T.J. Dillashaw, he is considered by many to be the best bantamweight in UFC history. However, his reputation as such took a huge hit when he was handed a two-year suspension by the Nevada State Athletic Commission after testing positive for recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) before his fight against Henry Cejudo in January 2019.
Dillashaw returned to action in July 2021, scoring a split-decision win over Cody Sandhagen. He would square off with then-bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling at UFC 280 a year later. Unfortunately for Dillashaw, that fight ended after he injured his shoulder during the opening round. Dillashaw attempted to fight through the injury, but the bout was ultimately called off before the four-minute mark of the second stanza.
Dillashaw later revealed that he was suffering from a lingering shoulder injury prior to the fight and underwent surgery to try and repair it shortly after.
Offering some insight into his fighting future, Dillashaw made it clear that his days of competing inside the Octagon are officially over.
“It doesn’t hurt. It just doesn’t work,” said Dillashaw.
https://x.com/mma_orbit/status/1855224359549370698?ref_src=
Dillashaw brings an end to his UFC run having gone 13-5 inside the Octagon and 17-5 overall.
Relive some of the former champion’s best UFC moments below:
