T.J. Dillashaw questions the validity of Cody Garbrandt's back injury
For the past few months, T.J. Dillashaw has put his entire focus on a fight with bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt that was supposed to take place at UFC 213 in July.
Unfortunately, Garbrandt suffered a back injury that forced him off the card, which then left Dillashaw without an opponent until he offered to move down to 125-pounds to face flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson.
While that match up is still far from official due to a very public spat between Johnson and the UFC, Dillashaw hasn't forgotten about Garbrandt or the fact that they should be less than a month out from their fight.
After suffering the back injury, Garbrandt followed advice from UFC president Dana White to fly to Germany for treatment, but he still wasn't going to be ready in time to fight as early as July 8.
Dillashaw still desperately wants to fight Garbrandt, although by the sound of things he's not completely sold that the 135-pound champion is really all that injured.
"Trust me, I want the Cody fight as well but he's injured — I guess you can say," Dillashaw said on the latest Fight Society podcast.
When asked to explain, Dillashaw revealed that he was sent some videos of Garbrandt since returning from Germany that didn't seem to show an injured fighter on the road to recovery.
"It's just the fact that I've seen him drunk and wrestling around with his buddies while his back is supposedly hurt doing rehab," Dillashaw explained. "There's some posts that I got tagged in or got sent to me when I woke up one morning, him getting all drunk with his buddies and him getting into a full blown wrestling match on the ground with Danny Castillo.
"If it was hurting you to walk and you couldn't take the title fight then you should probably be doing some rehab."
For now, Dillashaw has shifted his focus from Garbrandt to Johnson in hopes that he will fight for the flyweight title in August, but he absolutely plans on returning to bantamweight at some point in the future to settle that rivalry as well.
In an ideal scenario, Dillashaw would love to defeat Johnson to win the flyweight championship and then move back to 135-pounds to challenge Garbrandt for the bantamweight title.
"Hell yeah, that would be a perfect world. Exactly," Dillashaw said about facing Johnson and then Garbrandt.
"Absolutely, that what I'm looking for. I'm looking to be the best, I'm looking to be paid for it."
Listen to Dillashaw and Joseph Benavidez on the latest Fight Society podcast via Soundcloud below or download and subscribe to the show via Apple Podcasts.