Michael Bisping Doesn’t Have Sympathy For Cheating TJ Dillashaw

Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping doesn’t take too kindly to performance-enhancing drug cheats.

Bisping dealt with PED users for much of his career. Two of the Brit’s highest-profile defeats came at the hands of fighters who have been flagged for anti-doping violations in Chael Sonnen & Vitor Belfort. So when former bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw was suspended two years by USADA for EPO use, “The Count” had no sympathy.

“I just don’t understand it myself to be honest,” Bisping said on his “Believe You Me” podcast (h/t MMA News). “If you’re TJ Dillashaw, you’re champion of the world, he was close to being a two-weight champion — well, maybe not that close — but he had the opportunity. To know you’re going to get tested when you’re the champion in the UFC, you get tested more than if you’re a prelim fighter. That’s just the way it goes.”

“To risk it all. To know that if you’re taking EPO, there’s a two-year ban, tarnishes your legacy as Dan Hardy said on his podcast as a martial artist and as a human being. He’s never going to lose that.”

Like many fans, Bisping believes that once a fighter’s legacy is tarnished for failed PED tests, it’s nearly impossibl to restore your name.

Dillashaw, who was in contention for pound-for-pound king, threw everything that he had worked for away when he cheated, according to the UFC Hall of Famer:

“If he comes back after two years and continues to fight, the court of public opinion is not very forgiving and people are going to remember that,” Bisping said. “It’s a really, really bad look. Talk about a fall from grace. He was champion, he gets knocked out by [Henry] Cejudo, refuses to take that loss and now tests positive.”

“Listen, I don’t want to kick a man while he’s down too much cause obviously no one regrets this more than TJ Dillashaw but the fact of the matter is when you’re cheating in combat sports, I fail to have sympathy. I really do.”

For Bisping, it’s nothing personal. He likes Dillashaw as a man. But when it comes to martial arts competition, there is simply no room for cheaters. As Bisping says, ‘they’re not putting balls in a basket’:

“I like TJ, he’s a decent guy but I can’t have any sympathy,” Bisping said. “I suffered badly at the hands of performance enhancing drugs and many people have. I say it all the time, we’re not putting balls in a basket here. We’re trying to do damage to our opponents and there’s no honor in cheating like that. There really f**k*ng isn’t.”