Former Team Alpha Male coach Duane Ludwig and TJ Dillashaw were involved in a well-documented schism with Cody Garbrandt, Uriah Faber and many of his former teammates
At UFC 217 earlier this month, arch-rivals Dillashaw and Garbrandt finally had a chance to settle their differences inside the Octagon.
While Dillashaw came out victorious in that encounter, winning by way of second-round TKO, Garbrandt’s former head coach at Team Alpha Male was full of praise for how “No Love” recomposed himself despite being floored and pounded on way to his first pro loss (via MMAFighting):
“Cody, he got dropped and got up right away, as soon as T.J. was punching him the second time when it got stopped, he was up right away,” Ludwig said. “There is no quit in that kid. He is definitely a tough character, you cannot look past him at all. He is super fast, he surprised me. I was going, ‘We’re in for a fight after that first round,’ so I knew we had to change things up.
“I do see him in the future for sure, without a doubt. It could be next year. We’ll see how much the UFC likes him and how much the fans want to push him to see a rematch. He’s going to have to earn his way up, I mean he got stopped in the second round. I think he needs to make a couple of fights and works his way back up just like T.J. did.”
Ludwig also claimed that an unlikely though possible bout with Urijah Faber would offer a lesser test to Dillashaw than Garbrandt:
“Not to be disrespectful, I’m not trying to be an assh**e in any way, but that would be a pretty easy fight for T.J,” Ludwig said, later adding, “Anything can happen in a fight, but because I used to coach both of them, I used to watch them spar many, many rounds, so I have memories of which direction the sparring rounds could go.”
