T.J. Dillashaw: Two Championship Reigns and a Doping Reckoning
On May 24, 2014, T.J. Dillashaw ripped the UFC bantamweight championship from Renan Barão at UFC 173 in Las Vegas. The fifth-round stoppage launched the first of two title reigns and established Dillashaw as a major force at 135 pounds.
Two Reigns, Three Defining Finishes
Dillashaw finished Barão at 2:26 of the fifth round, turning his first championship opportunity into a breakthrough victory. His second climb to the belt came against Cody Garbrandt at UFC 217 on November 4, 2017, when he secured a second-round knockout.
The rematch left no opening for Garbrandt to reclaim the title. At UFC 227 on August 4, 2018, Dillashaw won by first-round TKO, with the stoppage arriving at 4:10. Those championship performances remain central to his competitive résumé.
The Suspension and the Last Title Challenge
His record also includes a serious anti-doping violation. USADA announced in April 2019 that Dillashaw had accepted a two-year sanction after testing positive for recombinant human erythropoietin, or rHuEPO, in a sample collected on January 18, 2019.
He later returned to title contention, but Aljamain Sterling stopped him with strikes at 3:44 of the second round at UFC 280 on October 22, 2022. That defeat closed another championship bid.
Dillashaw’s career demands a complete accounting: elite victories, two periods holding the bantamweight belt and a documented doping sanction. The achievements and the violation both belong in the story.
Sources
Article Tags
TJ Dillashaw, Renan Barao, Cody Garbrandt, Aljamain Sterling, UFC bantamweight
