The rivalry between T.J. Dillashaw and Team Alpha Male is well noted at this point. The former Bantamweight Champion’s gym has painted Dillashaw as the bad guy for turning his back on the team.
Urijah Faber – who will make his return to the octagon at UFC Fight Night Sacramento – once teased coming out of retirement to face Dillashaw; however, with the former Team Alpha Male member serving a lengthy suspension, it’s possible that the match-up will never happen.
As previously stated, Faber will be making his return to the octagon in his hometown of Sacramento. However, Dillashaw believes that Faber "should 've stayed retired"; Appearing on
Chael Sonnen's You're Welcome podcast, Dillashaw spoke about his former coach lacing up the gloves again, admitting that he's not surprised but isn’t convinced that Faber should actually return (transcript courtesy of fightful):
“I could always tell you when he retired that it wasn’t gonna be the last fight,” he said. "I mean to be honest, on a technical level probably should’ve stayed retired, especially with young and hungry guys coming up.
"I’m hoping he’s not hurting for money, even though we’ve had our beefs and whatever, you never wanna wish that on someone. Personally, I think he probably should’ve stayed retired but we’ll see, we’ll see how it comes out."
Should Faber be successful in his return to the octagon and the former UFC Hall of Famer continues fighting until Dillashaw makes his return (which won’t be until January 2021), then the former Bantamweight champion would gladly accept a fight against his former Team Alpha Male member, should the opportunity come his way:
"Oh yeah, absolutely," he responded.
"He’s the one that created the whole forcing me out of the gym. It was after my 2nd Barao fight . . . I was fighting Dominick Cruz and Duane (Ludwig) had already moved back to Colorado.
"That’s my main coach and so I was doing the back and forth. I’d go train in Colorado, come coach at Alpha Male and train there. Back and forth and back and forth," Dillashaw recalled. "I told Urijah, I was like ‘look man, I need to do a full camp in Colorado. Going back and forth hasn’t been good for me, I don’t think that’s gonna be what I’m gonna do this next camp.’ And he gave me the ultimatum that I’ve gotta choose, I’m either with Duane or I’m with Alpha Male.
"Once that happened, I knew he didn’t have my best interests at heart. It was more about me paying him because I obviously pay Team Alpha Male when I train there. So he gave me the ultimatum and when I left, I was the bad guy."
Faber will make his return against Ricky Simon at UFC Fight Night Sacramento on July 13th.