Team Alpha Male and its founder, Urijah Faber, had a messy split with T.J. Dillashaw in 2015, and to date, the beef has not been squashed.
Dillashaw won the UFC bantamweight title as a member of Team Alpha Male in May 2014. However, in 2015, he parted ways with the team and moved to Colorado to train with coach Duane Ludwig.
Faber has previously labelled Dillashaw’s exit from Team Alpha Male as “walking away from the family that brought him up, the guys who were a big part of his success.”
Although the departure was only the beginning, it soon sparked one of the most intense rivalries in MMA. And now it’s been years since the split, but Faber and Dillashaw have yet to squash the beef and still share a very strained relationship.
“The California Kid’s” recent comments suggest that things will not get better anytime soon between him and Dillashaw.
Ahead of Urijah Faber’s RAF 06 main event showdown with Henry Cejudo, the former was interviewed by MMA Junkie. During the sit-down, he was asked whether Team Alpha Male had resolved their issues with T.J. Dillashaw, especially after Josh Emmett, one of the team’s longest-standing members, had the former two-time UFC bantamweight champion in his camp for his UFC 320 fight against Youssef Zalal.
Faber said:
“Emmett’s been with us since maybe before T.J., 21 years or something like that, and no, [their training together does not bug me]. Josh is a 40-year-old man. T.J. is a 40-year-old man.”
The former WEC featherweight champion then spoke about his only problem with T.J. Dillashaw to date.
For the unversed, Dillashaw has publicly claimed that Urijah Faber kicked him off the team. However, “The California Kid” says he did not.
Urijah Faber previously told Ariel Helwani that Dillashaw “was getting paid to go somewhere else” and “got bought off by another team.” In the recent MMA Junkie interview, speaking about the same, he added:
You know, T.J. moved back to town. I haven’t buried the hatchet with the guy. I haven’t had any discussions with him. My only problem with T.J. is his, and I’m believing at this point that whatever he’s saying, he truly believes. What his rendition of what happened doesn’t match up with mine, which is that I cut him from the team or kicked him off the team or anything like that. That’s the newest thing I’ve been hearing.”
Urijah Faber Admits He’d Like to Bury the Hatchet With T.J. Dillashaw, But Doubts It’ll Happen
Urijah Faber also admitted that although he would love to just bury the hatchet with his once close friend and former teammate T.J. Dillashaw, he doubts it ever will happen, especially because of the different narratives from both sides. “The California Kid” said:
So I’m fine with T.J. I would love to just bury the hatchet, but the one problem is, the interpretation of what it seems like to me because he’s got a business that he’s pushing now, and he’s going on kind of a PR tour. I don’t necessarily want to be part of the PR tour unless it’s factual things. For me, I didn’t kick the guy off the team. There’s a MusclePharm team that he got paid to go be a part of, and that was it.”
Faber added:
So for me, the hatchet is buried in some respects. It just still bugs me if I hear something about myself that I know isn’t true. I don’t care if I hear other stuff that’s not true. If I was there, I know what happened so things like that bug me still. It would be nice to bury that hatchet, but I don’t that’s going to happen because I think whatever is being said is being believed, and interpretation and your own perspective is your own reality. I don’t know if there’s a way around that.”
Check out Urijah Faber’s comments about why he will never make peace with T.J. Dillashaw below (16:39):
