UFC’s bantamweight division has quietly become one of the most competitive weight classes in the entire promotion. With established fighters destined for the hall of fame (Urijah Faber), seasoned veterans champing at the bit for a shot at the title (Bryan Caraway), and up-and-coming talent that represents the future of the division (Cody Garbrandt), the class of fighters at 125 is an intriguing group.

Former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw is amongst that group of fighters jockeying for a crack at the champion Dominick Cruz. Dillashaw tangled with Cruz back in January and lost his title via narrow split decision. Immediate rematches are seemingly tough to come by these days so Dillashaw must get past Raphael Assuncao at UFC 200 to stake his claim. It’s a rematch of their 2013 fight where Dillashaw also lost a narrow decision that he still believes he won to this day.

The two split decisions that he’s lost still leave a bad taste in the Californian’s mouth and he hopes to avenge them both before the year is over.

“I felt I won that fight three years ago and I’ve grown leaps and bounds since then,” Dillashaw told Yahoo Sports. “I believe I was the better fighter back then and even more so now. I feel like the champion of the division.”

Dillashaw believes he’s best bantamweight on the planet. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the hardware to prove it anymore. And the more he sees Cruz parading around a title that he doesn’t feel he deserved, the more frustrated he gets.

“I miss being champion of the world and it makes me angry when I see someone walking around like they are the champ when they thought they lost the fight,” Dillashaw said. “Dominic Cruz came up to me after the fight and he pretty much insinuated that I had won that fight. And then you watch the behind the scenes and you hear his cornermen in the fourth and fifth rounds telling him that he has to knock me out because I was ahead. But now he’s acting all cocky like he’s the actual champion when he knows he’s not.”

Dillashaw is the consummate competitor. He doesn’t take losing well and the fact that he’s not the champ is eating at him. It also doesn’t help that he’s caught up in an awkward triangle of animosity with Cruz and the man who he used to call his friend, Urijah Faber.

Dillashaw’s highly publicized departure from Faber’s Team Alpha Male has led to some acrimony between the two fighters who once shared a common enemy in Dominick Cruz. But now that Dillashaw is gone, he has enemies on both sides and it left him in the awkward position of rooting against both fighters when Cruz handily defeated Faber at UFC 199. When asked if he thought he could see himself burying the hatchet with both fighters years from now, Dillashaw explained that the Cruz feud was built on competition while his rivalry with Faber is far deeper.

“The feud with Urijah and I is a totally different story,” Dillashaw said. It appeared that the fences could be mended with a conversation until Faber suggested that Dillashaw could have been using performance-enhancing drugs in an April interview.

“For him to be as selfish as he was and to try to bring my name down especially trying to say that Cruz and I were on PEDs was a little ridiculous. He crossed the line with me. It really, really pissed me off with the way he handled things and tried to discredit who I am. He’s definitely going to have to do some big apology for me to ever be friends with that guy again.”

But Dillashaw doesn’t think that him leaving Team Alpha Male was the problem. He believes that the issues started once Dillashaw accomplished what Faber never could. And that is capture UFC gold.

“I had something that he was never able to accomplish in four tries and I think that’s where it started,” Dillashaw said. “He’s definitely a guy that, no matter what it is, has to one up you. He wants to be the guy who has everything and if it’s something that you do to your house he has to do it better. It ultimately came down to how jealous he was of me being the champion of the world. He wanted to bring me down and it shows he was never my friend to begin with.”

But the awkward triangle beef aside, Dillashaw is aware of the stakes heading into UFC 200 and promises that his eyes remain on the prize. After he avenges his loss to Assuncao in a fight three years in the making, Dillashaw hopes that his actions speak louder than his words and a victory will earn him the rematch.

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