Boy, that escalated quickly. With news that UFC Bantamweight Champion TJ Dillashaw would be moving training camps permanently to his coach Duane Ludwig’s Team Elevation gym in Colorado, speculation arose as to whether that would affect Dillashaw and former friend/coach Urijah Faber’s pledge to not fight one another. That question was answered yesterday during an appearance on The MMA Hour where Dillashaw revealed that Faber had banned him from his Team Alpha Male Gym in Sacramento, a place he had trained and coached kickboxing for the past six years, developing from a talented amateur wrestler into the top-ranked bantamweight in the world today. With tensions high between both fighters, the champ stated he’d now be okay with fighting his former mentor. Dillashaw’s biggest spurt of true improvement occurred when retired fighter Duane “Bang” Ludwig took over head coaching duties over at Team Alpha Male, helping Dillashaw rise to become the UFC champion with an upset victory over Renan Barao in 2014. When Ludwig left Alpha Male due to irreconsilable differences with Faber, Dillashaw decided to split training between the two gyms. Now with Dillashaw training and coaching full-time at Ludwig’s gym, the feud between Faber and Ludwig has begun to spill over to one between Dillashaw and Faber. Dillashaw has not been very happy with how Faber has turned many fans against him, posting a message aimed at his critics via his Instagram account yesterday. Dillashaw is currently slated to battle former champion Dominick Cruz this upcoming January, but with a current dearth of top healthy bantamweight title contenders, don’t be surprised to see Faber pop up as a potential foe in 2016.
