With his two-year suspension for taking the banned substance EPO now expired, T.J. Dillashaw has landed in a top contender matchup in the bantamweight division he once ruled.
Reports online indicate that Dillashaw will fight the highly-ranked Cory Sandhagen on a May 8 event which doesn’t yet have a location attached to it, as initially reported by ESPN.
Dillashaw’s postitive test for the banned anabolic steroid came following a losing effort against former flyweight champion Henry Cejudo in January two years ago. Dillashaw, who was the reigning bantamweight champion at the time, was defeated around 30 seconds into the first round by ‘Triple C’.
He misery was further compounded by the drugs ban, which Dillashaw openly admitted when the allegations were made against him. He used his early time out of the cage to have operations on both of his shoulders to repair longstanding injuries.
Sandhagen, meanwhile, is one of the 135-pound contenders to have surged onto the scene in Dillashaw’s absence. He is currently on a two-fight win streak having beaten both Frankie Edgar and Marlon Moraes in recent fights, with a submission loss to current bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling the only blemish in his UFC career to date.
The winner of this fight will likely be the next man up for the winner of the rematch between Sterling and Petr Yan following the American fighter’s controversial DQ title win at this month’s UFC 259.
