Former UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw has claimed he didn’t benefit from his previous PED use.

Back in 2019, Dillashaw was stripped of his 135-pound title and suspended after testing positive for recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO). It came in the midst of his UFC flyweight title defeat to Henry Cejudo, with many questioning whether Dillashaw would even return after his suspension was complete.

As he prepares to come back and battle Cory Sandhagen, Dillashaw has now claimed in an interview with Brendan Schaub that his EPO use didn’t actually give him a huge benefit.

“If I thought I got somewhere due to PEDs, I wouldn’t be calling out Cory Sandhagen,” Dillashaw said. “I wouldn’t be asking for the top five. I’m going to be a f*cking animal when I get back in the cage.”

“People can go say whatever they want about the decision I made, but USADA actually put me under a microscope when I got in trouble, man,” Dillashaw said. “They went back to all my fights that they ever collected my samples, retested all of them all the way back to [the Dominick Cruz fight]. Because they keep an A and B sample every time you get tested.”

“No matter what, it’s gonna be like that,” Dillashaw added. “I made the mistake. That’s like USADA’s weapon to use against you — to really slander you so nobody else wants to do this sh*t. Those questions are valid because I f*cked up, I made the decision. But me being able to live with that, me owning up to it has made it f*cking easy.”

Quotes courtesy of Middle Easy

Do you think TJ Dillashaw will be able to beat Cory Sandhagen in his return this Saturday night? Let us know your thoughts on this saga in the comments, BJPENN Nation!