TJ Dillashaw: ‘I cheated. I don’t want to create any excuses.’
It has been nearly three months since TJ Dillashaw relinquished the UFC bantamweight championship after having tested positive for a banned substance. He finally broke his silence, admitting to having cheated in preparation for his January 2019 bout with Henry Cejudo.
Dillashaw held the bantamweight title entering the fight with Cejudo, who was the UFC flyweight champion. He wanted nothing more than to become a dual-division champion, proclaiming to the world that he could easily drop to 125 pounds and take the belt from the Olympic Gold Medalist.
The problem for Dillashaw was that his body disagreed. He couldn’t make the drop as easily as he thought and it ravaged his body to the point he didn’t feel like training for the fight. He was tired, lethargic, not at all himself. So he took the only way he could find to try and get himself back on form.
“First and foremost, I cheated,” Dillashaw said while on a recent episode of You’re Welcome with Chael Sonnen
“I pushed my body to the extreme. About six weeks out, my body started to crash, it started to get tired. My hematocrit was crashing. I was on the verge of becoming anemic. I decided to take something I wasn’t allowed to take. It’s called ProCrit. It would help me not only make the weight, but to be myself.”
ProCrit is a medication often used to help people with anemia. The active ingredient is Erythropoietin or EPO, which is a substance that has often been used in the professional cycling world as a performance enhancer. It is one of the main substances that led to former multiple-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong being banned from the sport for life.
Dillashaw relayed that his blood levels bordered on him becoming anemic, which would account for his being so wiped out. He also said that when he used EPO, it basically brought him back in line with his normal levels, not something beyond what is naturally occurring in the human body.
This article first appeared at News – MMAWeekly.com
Help support MMACrazies.com when you shop Amazon by starting your online Amazon shopping at MMACrazies.com/recommends/amazon. You are not charged extra, but we receive a small and very helpful commission on everything you purchase. Thanks for thinking of us every time you shop at Amazon.
