Urijah Faber Offers His Prediction For Cody Garbrandt vs. TJ Dillashaw
Urijah Faber thinks somebody is going to sleep when UFC bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt defends his title against TJ Dillashaw.
Faber has witnessed what both men can do firsthand as the three were once all training partners at Team Alpha Male. Dillashaw would soon depart to follow former Alpha Male head-coach Duane Ludwig to Colorado. Now the relationship between Dillashaw and his former teammates has boiled over, and we’re likely to see fireworks when Garbrandt and Dillashaw share the Octagon.
Future UFC Hall Of Famer and former bantamweight title challenger Urijah Faber recently joined The MMA Hour earlier this week (Mon. April 10, 2017) to discuss Garbrandt and Dillashaw’s upcoming clash, and revealed that he believes ‘No Love’ will have his hand raised when it’s all said and done after a knockout finish (quotes via MMA Fighting):
“I think it’ll probably be a knockout, just because Cody hits hard,” Faber said. “We’ve seen it in his fights, we’ve seen it in the room. He’s got a history. T.J.’s also a heavy hitter, but not like Cody. They’re going to be in a gun fight.”
Garbrandt and Dillashaw have spent a lot of time together lately, as they coached opposite one another on the 25th season of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF 25). Both men are currently at high points in their careers, as Dillashaw comes off of a two-fight win streak and Garbrandt who comes off of the biggest win of his career as he took out Dominick Cruz at UFC 207 to win the bantamweight throne.
With both men coming in on hot streaks in their mixed martial arts (MMA) careers, Faber is expecting a tough fight from his Alpha Male alumni, but still believes Garbrandt will find a way to get his hand raised in the end:
“I don’t think it’ll be that early — I don’t know when, you can’t predict that stuff,” he said. “But, I know it’s going to be a very tough fight. I’ve seen T.J. and some of his stuff, and he’s already freaking out like a wild man, as he tends to do. It’s going to be a competitive fight, and Cody’s going to get it.”
Despite retiring from MMA competition this past December with a unanimous decision win over Brad Pickett, Faber still plans on helping ‘No Love’ prepare for Dillashaw in training camp – as he has already been doing for some time now:
“I’m going to play a large roll in general, as I have been and in the future with Cody and his training and everything else,” he said. “I mean, those guys have fought each other a bunch of times. I remember all sorts of times when these guys were going at each other in the gym.
“It’s going to be more of the same. It’s hard to take someone like Cody or someone like T.J. and do stuff that’s a whole lot different from a camp, because they already train like champions. They already approach every fight with the same intensity. So, we’ll be doing the best training in the world over here at Team Alpha Male, and bringing home that strap.”
