Faber: Dillashaw walked away from the family
Urijah Faber: “We were grooming him to be a champion. If he wants to be friends, I have no problem being friends and told [TJ Dillashaw] that.”
Earlier this week it was revealed that TJ Dillashaw was leaving his long team, Alpha Male, and yesterday Urijah Faber opened up about the champion’s departure:
“He said he wants to come back and be a part of our team, but he made a big boy decision. He walked away from the family that brought him up, the guys who were a big part of his success.”
All that said, Faber isn’t closing the door on any kind of relationship with Dillashaw, but says the professional avenues are no longer open.
“Friendship’s a different thing. If we want to maintain a friendship that’s built through actions, I’m OK with being friends with the guy. We’ve been really close. We’ve lived in the same house together when he was going through rough times. He’s been a sidekick to me whenever I went through all of my training,” Faber says. “We were grooming him to be a champion. If he wants to be friends, I have no problem being friends and told him that.
“It doesn’t make sense, from now on, because of this tiny amount of money in the big scheme of things that he’s going to go represent another team, send the message to our team that what we have isn’t good enough because even in college he had a better situation than us.
“T.J. just said he wants to walk away from the team. That doesn’t mean you get to come in here and help coach the guys when he’s really going to be watching to see a little opening here or there.”
While Faber didn’t say whether he was open or willing to fight Dillashaw at this point in time or if any plan to do so was imminent, he did note the pressure from the UFC to make the fight made the possibility much likelier and that previous road blocks were no longer there.
“Zuffa’s not going to be like, oh we can’t fight T.J. because he used to train with us. Trust me, this train is going to get blown out of proportion,” he says.