Former champ claims the UFC invested $6 million into 'the next Conor McGregor' before going 1-4 in his next five fights
11/09/2024 08:43 AM
When you think of the best 'Bad Blood' title fights that have gone down in UFC history; several iconic rivalries instantly come to mind – Jones vs Cormier, McGregor vs Nurmagomedov, and of course, Dillashaw vs Garbrandt.
The latter two bantamweights were the best of friends before a trainer dispute led to them becoming mortal enemies, with TJ Dillashaw now revealing just how much money the promotion had invested into his notorious opponent.
TJ Dillashaw shares bold $6M admission on Cody Garbrandt's UFC promotion
Former UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw recently appeared on The Casuals MMA podcast and during the fascinating 80-minute-long interview, re-watched both of his infamous title fights against Cody 'No Love' Garbrandt.
Whilst Dillashaw was able to get the better of 'No Love' on both occasions, scoring knockouts in the second and first rounds respectively, he did admit that Garbrandt entered those two fights with "a lot of pressure" on his shoulders courtesy of the UFC.
"He had an amazing fight against [Dominick] Cruz, sick fight – I've never seen Cody Garbrandt be that good, he was perfect, and his style is perfect [to beat] Cruz.
"He's by far the fastest human being that I've ever trained with in terms of his reaction times and how quick he is, he's got great wrestling, and he's got power in his hands right, so it was just a perfect matchup for him."
Dillashaw claimed that following his masterful performance against Cruz to claim the 135lb title, the UFC believed that they had the next Conor McGregor on their hands and subsequently, broke the bank to market Garbrandt to its global audience.
"But then coming off that, the UFC is like 'Hey, this is our next big horse so let's put some money into him'… They marketed the s*** out of him, put him in a bunch of commercials, got some celebrities behind him.
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"From what I was told, they put like $6 million into marketing him before our fight… He went to massive, way bigger than me, stardom fast – they wanted him to be the next Conor McGregor."
Unfortunately, that massive investment never truly paid off with Garbrandt suffering a meteoric fall from grace following that initial KO – going 1-4 in his next five fights and 3-5 since that first encounter.
Garbrandt was actually meant to feature on tonight's UFC Vegas 100 card at The Apex against Miles Johns but was sadly forced to withdraw from the event earlier this week with an injury.
Dillashaw meanwhile, previously admitted that whilst he'd love to get one more UFC fight in, his persistent injuries mean that he's now done with MMA.
"It's exciting and sad at the same time, to be honest," he stated on the next generation of fighters via the Jaxxon Podcast back in July: "Because it's like, I'm f****** done, you know what I mean.
"I was just forced out of the sport, it sucks. I feel like I had so much more to give still… The only thing that I can still do competitively right now, might be Power Slap. I only have one arm, dude."
Dillashaw would demonstrate just how bad his shoulder injury was during the Casuals MMA Podcast.
