Tag: TJ Dillashaw

Duane Ludwig Says He’d Corner TJ Dillashaw in Fight Against Urijah Faber

Do we have a Team Alpha Male rivalry brewing? 
Sorry to get you all excited, but no, not really. Not yet, anyway. 
T.J. Dillashaw just defeated Renan Barao at UFC 173 to snag the bantamweight title, and already talks are heating up about a Te…

Do we have a Team Alpha Male rivalry brewing? 

Sorry to get you all excited, but no, not really. Not yet, anyway. 

T.J. Dillashaw just defeated Renan Barao at UFC 173 to snag the bantamweight title, and already talks are heating up about a Team Alpha Male battle for gold between the newly minted champ and the former challenger Urijah Faber. 

Faber, of course, is the head of Team Alpha Male. He’s their standout superstar, their golden boy. He founded the gym, and he keeps an eye out for new talent to bring in. 

Now, one of those fighters in Dillashaw has done what Faber himself failed to do on multiple occasions: he won UFC gold. 

Teammates or not, that has to sting Faber a little as a competitor, and now former Team Alpha Male head coach Duane Ludwig is prickling the wound by saying he’d corner Dillashaw in a potential showdown. 

Appearing on MMAjunkie.com Radio, Ludwig talked about a hypothetical bout between the camp’s top two bantamweight combatants (transcription courtesy of MMA Junkie’s Steven Marrocco).  

“T.J.’s my boy. I would (coach T.J. against Urijah),” Ludwig said. “This is one of the things about T.J. and Faber. They fight once or twice a week in the gym. Why not get paid for it?”

Throughout the rest of the interview, Ludwig went on to praise Faber for bringing so much talent to the camp and for giving him the opportunity to coach a stable of phenomenal mixed martial artists. 

In addition, Ludwig said he shared a “special bond” with Dillashaw, making it seem that he would show Dillashaw some preferential treatment under any circumstance. 

As a coach, that’s probably not right, and it will undoubtedly rustle some jimmies. 

Right now, there is zero indication that Faber and Dillashaw will ever fight, but the current champion has previously stated he would take on his teammate if the UFC made it worth his while.

After winning the belt, Dillashaw changed his tune and said he is not interested in a fight with Faber, but one has to wonder if the UFC can pull some strings and make this happen. 

If it ever comes to fruition, one thing is certain: Ludwig will shack up with Dillashaw, and Faber will receive the unique opportunity to face a friend, teammate and former coach all at once. 

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Renan Barao Doesn’t Deserve Immediate Rematch with T.J. Dillashaw

T.J. Dillashaw’s championship win over Renan Barao at UFC 173 created all sorts of interesting subplots around the UFC bantamweight championship.
Dillashaw has no shortage of contenders for his shiny new belt, which he’ll take back to Sacra…

T.J. Dillashaw’s championship win over Renan Barao at UFC 173 created all sorts of interesting subplots around the UFC bantamweight championship.

Dillashaw has no shortage of contenders for his shiny new belt, which he’ll take back to Sacramento on Monday when he leaves Las Vegas. The most prominent of these is Raphael Assuncao, who scored a razor-thin split decision over the new champion last October in Brazil. Assuncao was originally the man in line to face Barao, but an injury suffered in training prevented him from accepting the fight. Dillashaw got the nod, and the rest is history.

If Dillashaw had his way, Assuncao would be the next man standing across the Octagon. “I’d like to get my win back, yeah,” the new champion said at the UFC 173 post-fight press conference. The loss to Assuncao is one that eats away at the new champion, and likely will until he gets a chance to redeem himself.

If something happens to Assuncao, there are other options. Dominick Cruz is slowly working his way back from the longest injury hiatus in the history of mixed martial arts. The mere thought of Dillashaw and Cruz dancing around the Octagon, with all the angles and footwork and speed that would be on display, is enough to send shivers down the spine of any self-respecting fight fan. They are kindred spirits who have much in common, both in style and substance.

Takeya Mizugaki waits in the wings. He was originally scheduled to face Dillashaw in this event, but was left to face and beat Francisco Rivera when Dillashaw answered the championship call from Sean Shelby. Mizugaki has five wins in a row, but probably still needs another win. Still, he’d do in a pinch.

And there is a small subset of fans who believe Barao, the dethroned champion, deserves an immediate rematch. To them, I say nay! Barao will be in the title picture again, and soon, but the idea of giving him an immediate shot at Dillashaw after what transpired at UFC 173 is ludicrous.

I am fine with rematches of championship fights, but only in specific situations.

A rematch should be granted when a long-time champion loses his belt

Anderson Silva is a perfect example; he held the belt for nearly seven years before losing to Chris Weidman. That is an extensive track record of excellence, and it rightly earned Silva an immediate rematch.

Barao has been the “official” bantamweight champion since February. Most have considered him the real champion since he captured the interim belt in 2012, because we had no idea if Cruz would ever return to unify the belts. Still, even if you count the interim title reign, Barao has been champion for less than two years. He defended the title three times before losing to Dillashaw. That’s not remotely comparable to Silva’s track record.

A rematch should be granted if it’s a close fight, if there is a poor judging decision or the ending is a fluke

Here, you can point to Silva again. His first loss to Weidman could be blamed on Silva’s decision to showboat. Or the rematch between Frankie Edgar and B.J. Penn, which came about because Edgar was awarded a questionable decision during their first fight. Or Edgar vs. Benson Henderson, where Henderson won a questionable decision of his own in the first fight.

Dillashaw vs. Barao was not questionable. Dillashaw won all five rounds and finished Barao emphatically in the final frame. Many of us gave Dillashaw a 10-8 first round. It was not close, not ever, and there was no controversy.

I was told early last week that Barao was undergoing a bad weight cut. At a media gathering on Thursday, he looked drawn and pale. Many will point to that weight cut as a reason why the “real” Barao didn’t show up on Saturday night, and they might be right.

But a weight cut is within Barao’s control. It is not the same as suffering a knee injury and moving forward with the fight to help the UFC out of a bind. It is Barao’s choice to walk around significantly bigger than even teammate Jose Aldo, who fights in a weight class 10 pounds heavier than Barao.

Barao is not deserving of an immediate rematch. He was overwhelmed and dominated. There was no fluke and no bad decision, and Barao hasn’t built up the kind of years-long title reign that makes him deserving of an immediate return fight. He shouldn’t go to the back of the line, of course. He needs to win just one fight, and then he can step back in the cage with Dillashaw.

But there is simply no reason for Barao to leapfrog Assuncao, who has earned his shot and deserves his opportunity.

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TJ Dillashaw’s Win over Renan Barao Leaves Jose Aldo as the Only Brazilian Champ

TJ Dillashaw dethroned former bantamweight champion Renan Barao at UFC 173, and just like that, Jose Aldo became the last UFC champion waving the Brazilian flag. 
If we go back less than two years to July 2012, there were four Brazilian champions …

TJ Dillashaw dethroned former bantamweight champion Renan Barao at UFC 173, and just like that, Jose Aldo became the last UFC champion waving the Brazilian flag. 

If we go back less than two years to July 2012, there were four Brazilian champions in eight divisions. 

Junior dos Santos ruled the heavyweight division, Anderson “The Spider” Silva was still the greatest fighter in the world at middleweight and Jose Aldo and Renan Barao stood tall above the rest of the featherweight and bantamweight divisions, respectively. 

Dos Santos was the first to lose his strap.

In December 2012, dos Santos was battered for five rounds by Cain Velasquez at UFC 155. He would challenge Velasquez again at UFC 166 in October 2013, but the Brazilian would come up even shorter this time around, getting stopped in the fight’s final frame.  

Between those two heavyweight title fights, Silva was famously knocked out by Chris Weidman at UFC 162. It was a win that nobody saw coming—not like that, at least—and it prompted an immediate rematch. 

Like dos Santos, Silva would fail in his second bid at regaining the title.

That left only Barao and Aldo, and neither man looked remotely vincible during his run as champion. These two guys were here to stay. 

Barao hadn’t lost in nine years going into his UFC 173 showdown with Dillashaw, and even though the Team Alpha Male product had looked good during his UFC career, he didn’t appear to be the man to defeat the inhuman Barao.

Dillashaw had good wrestling and knockout power, so what? The Brazilian had already defeated arguably the hardest puncher in the division in Michael McDonald via submission, and he dispatched one of the division’s finest grapplers and Dillashaw‘s teammate, Urijah Faber, twice, each time with little effort. 

What did Dillashaw have to offer that Barao hadn’t already seen? 

At UFC 173, we found out. 

Dillashaw had a perfect game plan, complex footwork, huge power and the will to succeed. It was too much for Barao to handle, and Dillashaw finished the fight via TKO in the fifth round. 

The win was shocking, and it was equal parts devastating for Brazilian fans, as an American once again snagged one of their coveted titles. 

MMA is an undeniably volatile sport, and in just two years, Brazilians went from owning half of the UFC titles to owning just one out of eight (12.5 percent of them for you math people out there). 

And now Jose Aldo, the last Brazilian standing, is booked to fight another Team Alpha Male product in Chad Mendes at UFC 176 in August. 

Like Dillashaw, Mendes boasts huge knockout power and incredible athleticism. “Money” is, in many ways, a featherweight version of Dillashaw. We haven’t seen the kind of footwork Dillashaw showed against Barao from Mendes, but then again, we hadn’t seen it look that good from Dillashaw himself until he fought for the title. 

There’s no telling how much Mendes has improved since his last fight, and there’s no doubt that he presents a significant challenge to Aldo as they head toward their much-anticipated rematch. 

Aldo won the first fight via knockout in Round 1, but Mendes has won five straight since that time, scoring a knockout in four of them.

If Aldo is not on top of his game, Mendes‘ streak might get pushed to six, and Brazil will lose its last titleholder.

My, how things can change in this sport.  

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Will UFC 173 Force the UFC to Learn Its Lesson About Promoting Fighters?


(Photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

Regarding Renan Barao and the bantamweight division, the UFC had a promotion problem. Barao was one of the sport’s greatest fighters, yet he couldn’t fill a bar showing the PPV if they gave away free food and free beer.

Fans didn’t care about Barao, and there was nothing the UFC could do to change that. While Barao’s inability to speak English, rugged good looks, and total apathy regarding the salesman part of being a prize fighter certainly didn’t make promoting him easy, building Barao was still the UFC’s job. And they continuously failed.

MMA Junkie’s Ben Fowlkes analyzed this issue in the days before UFC 173 [Editor’s note: Hilariously, Dana White grilled Fowlkes for the article but admitted to not reading it…]:


(Photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

The UFC had a promotion problem with Renan Barao. He was one of the sport’s greatest fighters, yet he couldn’t fill a bar showing the PPV if they gave away free food and free beer.

Fans didn’t care about Barao, and there was nothing the UFC could do to change that. While Barao’s inability to speak English, rugged good looks, and total apathy regarding the salesman aspect of being a prize fighter certainly didn’t make promoting him easy, building Barao was still the UFC’s job. And they continuously failed.

MMA Junkie’s Ben Fowlkes analyzed this issue in the days before UFC 173 [Editor’s note: Hilariously, Dana White grilled Fowlkes for the article but admitted to not reading it…]:

First Barao was a “monster.” Then he was a “killer.” Now he’s “the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world,” according to White, and just in case you aren’t buying that, he’ll go ahead and bury you with stats. Because nothing gets fans fired up for a title fight quite like math.

It’s hard to blame the UFC too much. On paper, Barao should be a superstar. His unbeaten streak is legitimately impressive, even if the first few years of it came against regional nobodies, and even if White apparently felt the need to fudge some of those numbers when touting Barao’s stats (“The kid hasn’t lost a fight in 35 fights,” said White, which isn’t exactly true, since Barao is 32-1 according to Sherdog and 28-1 according to MMA.tv).

But if Barao’s struggle to go big time tells us anything, it might be that skill doesn’t sell as much as we’d like to pretend it does. Not by itself, anyway. Not if it comes wrapped up in the package of a 135-pound fighter who doesn’t speak much English, doesn’t have much in the way of an identifiable personality, and – let’s just be real here – looks a little bit goofy.

Leading up to UFC 173, The Washington Post ran a story about the UFC. Renan Barao’s name wasn’t mentioned once. Instead, the article was a thinly veiled hagiography of Dana White. The Renan Barao situation, in addition to the above, was also the result of promoting the brand and the figurehead over the fighters. The question most casual fans asked during fight week was “Who the fuck is Renan Barao?”

Furthermore, the “this guy is a pound-for-pound monster, buy our shit” line has been trotted out far too often lately. According to MMA Owl’s Mike Fagan, Dana White—and the UFC’s promotional efforts by extension—have touted as many as five pound-for-pound kings in the last year. Exaggerations lose selling power as they become more common.

But the UFC got lucky last night. Instead of a champion with zero marketability thanks to the language barrier and a lemur-like face, the UFC now has TJ Dillashaw to work with—a conventionally attractive American who won the title via complete domination. Hopefully the UFC has learned its lesson, and will promote Dillashaw as something other than a great fighter, because it has been proven time and time again that greatness alone doesn’t sell.

UFC 173 Results: 3 Fights for T.J. Dillashaw to Take Next

T.J. Dillashaw shocked fans and experts alike Saturday with a one-sided beating that concluded with a TKO of Renan Barao late in their bantamweight title fight at UFC 173 on Saturday in Las Vegas.
Dillashaw not only overcame tremendous odds to avenge t…

T.J. Dillashaw shocked fans and experts alike Saturday with a one-sided beating that concluded with a TKO of Renan Barao late in their bantamweight title fight at UFC 173 on Saturday in Las Vegas.

Dillashaw not only overcame tremendous odds to avenge teammate and mentor Urijah Faber’s loss to Barao, he also became the first member of the Sacramento-based Team Alpha Male to win a UFC title.

Of the UFC’s nine champs, only Chris Weidman and Ronda Rousey can say they have less experience than Dillashaw, who has just 10 career wins, including six in the UFC.

His future’s not in question, but Dillashaw must now begin the arduous task of attempting to defend his belt in a deeply talented 135-pound division.

Here’s a glimpse at three matchups Dillashaw could entertain in the second half of 2014.

 

 

Begin Slideshow

T.J. Dillashaw: How the New 135-Pound Champ Dethroned Renan Barao at UFC 173

The handful of pundits who believed T.J. Dillashaw would dethrone Renan Barao at UFC 173 certainly didn’t forecast a brutal TKO win from the Team Alpha Male standout Saturday in Las Vegas. 
Regardless, a confident Dillashaw utilized his many tools…

The handful of pundits who believed T.J. Dillashaw would dethrone Renan Barao at UFC 173 certainly didn’t forecast a brutal TKO win from the Team Alpha Male standout Saturday in Las Vegas. 

Regardless, a confident Dillashaw utilized his many tools, particularly his footwoork, speed and athleticism, to trump the seemingly unstoppable Barao in every facet of the game to become his team’s first UFC champ.

Although Dillashaw, a former NCAA Division 1 wrestler who entered the fight with just nine wins, failed to score a takedown for the first time since his UFC debut, he outstruck the streaking Barao, 169-68 and 140-64 in the significant strikes category.

Dillashaw landed 99 of 260 shots he threw to Barao‘s head, 17 of 21 to his body and 24 of 28 to his legs. He also scored on 19 of the 30 ground strikes he fired.

In contrast, Barao landed just 68 of 277 total strikes, including 64 of 273 in the significant strikes department. And despite the fact that he stuffed each of Dillashaw‘s three shots, Barao failed to muster a takedown or submission attempt.

In his post-fight interview with UFC commentator Joe Rogan, Dillashaw, the UFC’s fourth-ranked bantamweight heading into the fight, said Barao‘s reputation and resume brought the best out in him.

Barao‘s the best in the world in my eyes…you know what I mean? I’ve been looking up to the guy [and] I felt respect to get in the cage against him. He’s the best in the world and that’s what brought it out in me. That’s what brought the best out in me because I knew I was fighting the best. I had to bring my A-game to be the champion of the world, and it happened baby.

Dillashaw got off to the ideal start and landed 27 of 65 strikes in the opening round while absorbing just seven blows from Barao.

The second round proved the most tightly contested as Dillashaw outstruck Barao, 28-20, all of which were significant strikes.

Dillashaw regained his steam in Round 3 and hit his mark with 39 of 78 strikes compared to Barao‘s 19 of 73.

In the last 7:26 of the bout, Dillashaw landed 75 strikes to Barao‘s 22, including 56-18 in the significant strikes category.

A battered but resilient Barao took all he could handle from a rabid Dillashaw in the fifth round before crumbling and getting saved from further punishment by referee Herb Dean.

The third-ranked pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC heading into the bout, Barao tasted defeat for the first time since his pro debut in 2005.

“It was really a tough fight. I have to congratulate him. Tonight was his night, but I’m coming back,” a humbled Barao said to Rogan.

Dillashaw last fell to Raphael Assuncao in a controversial split decision at UFC Fight Night 29 last October. Following that loss, Dillashaw has refined his game significantly under soon-to-be former coach Duane Ludwig.

The 28-year-old Dillashaw brought superior footwork, quickness and cardio to the table against Barao, and that remedy proved too much for the 27-year-old Brazilian.

Barao fell to 9-1 under the Zuffa, LLC umbrella, while Dillashaw improved to 6-2 in the UFC.

All stats gathered via Fightmetric.com. 

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