Opinion: Dillashaw, Faber, Cruz and the Ugly Truths Bantamweight Taught Us

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Editor's note: The views & opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

The current bantamweight landscape in the Ultimate Fighting Championship teaches us more about fighting’s ugly truths than any other example in mixed martial arts history. The reason is simple: It’s personal, all of it.

Team Alpha Male founder and former World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion Urijah Faber and his former pupil, current UFC bantamweight titleholder T.J. Dillashaw, are suffering through a split they never imagined. For the last six years, Faber’s Sacramento, Calif.-based squad groomed the former Cal State Fullerton wrestler from Unknown Fighter to world champion. The schism stems from the fact that it wasn’t enough to keep Dillashaw from departing for Elevation Fight Team in Broomfield, Colo., a year after winning the belt.

It’s a business decision, according to Dillashaw. Here is a comprehensive look at why business can’t separate itself from the personal side of things in this fallout.

“T.J. Dillashaw is an up-and-coming guy,” Faber said after he lost to Renan Barao at UFC 169 and failed for a third time to capture the bantamweight title. “If anyone deserves a shot, man, give it to him.”

Dillashaw toppled Barao in Sherdog.com’s 2014 “Upset of the Year” three months later in a fifth-round technical knockout and became the UFC bantamweight champion. He remains the only Team Alpha Male fighter to seize UFC gold in eight combined attempts. What Faber did putting over Dillashaw for the next title shot after losing his own title fight was anomalous.

Faber crafting a world-class team that produced a modern UFC champion while still at the top of the sport himself is an unprecedented achievement. He literally jackhammered his Ultimate Fitness gym’s foundation with family and friends to provide prospective fighters a place to develop into world-class combatants and champions. It culminated in Dillashaw scoring the team’s first UFC belt.

Faber signed Duane Ludwig to head coach Team Alpha Male in 2013 and drive its UFC championship goals. Ludwig did so and then bounced immediately following Dillashaw’s upset over Barao. Ludwig and Faber’s fallout became constant headline fodder for the last year, with Dillashaw stuck in the middle. Dillashaw maintained dual allegiances to Ludwig’s training and Team Alpha Male, where Ludwig was no longer welcome. It seemed Dillashaw was one-foot-in-one-foot-out in Sacramento, even doing most of his last title fight camp in Colorado.

No in-house gym drama has ever been subjected to more public scrutiny, and the tension was uncharacteristic of Team Alpha Male’s laid-back, wholeheartedly united vibe.

Dillashaw has now confirmed that he will remain in Colorado to train for his January title defense against former champion Dominick Cruz. It wasn’t an official decree by Dillashaw to choose Ludwig over Faber and Team Alpha Male, but that’s what the move is at its core. Dillashaw’s official destination, Elevation Fight Team, supplies a necessary plausible deniability buffer. Ludwig told “The Joe Rogan Experience” prior to Dillashaw’s reign that his Bang Muay Thai school would associate with Lester Bowling -- Elevation Fight Team’s head coach -- to foster another MMA team and elevate their shared Colorado area to a top training destination.

The truth is gym chemistry is invaluable and takes years to perfect. The Ludwig-Dillashaw title heist at Team Alpha Male subverts it. This is why team dynamics are so insulated from outside forces. Everyone is just doing what they believe they have to do, but it clearly pains Faber and Dillashaw. It’s not uncommon for a fighter to search out new training avenues, as different looks are incredible assets to a professional fighter’s evolution. The extraordinary part is the champion’s declared defection.

Now another team -- centered on Dillashaw’s arrival -- gets to tout the fact that the UFC bantamweight champion trains under its roof. Dillashaw wounded Faber’s vision for his Sacramento empire. Faber expected Dillashaw to lead Team Alpha Male through his UFC title run, just as “The California Kid” had done through his WEC reign.

Faber revealed on Stud Show Radio that he turned down a Dillashaw fight twice based on their gym affiliation. He fears the fight is inevitable since Dillashaw broke down that defense. Declining the opportunity to live out his own UFC title aspirations in a major money fight was Faber’s personal decision to act in the team’s best interest, avoiding the rift they are in now. Two teammates disagreeing on whether fighting each other is taboo or not is a fundamental difference that cannot be overcome.

Dillashaw addressed his decision on his own Stud Show Radio appearance and claimed the only difference would be that he’s representing Elevation Fight Team instead of Team Alpha Male. He said it as if it’s not the biggest difference possible. Who a fighter represents beyond himself in competition is everything, from teams and cities to countries, sponsors and causes. It’d be like announcing at a champion’s homecoming parade that he or she had a burning desire to call another far away place home. The decision to defect from Team Alpha Male pits Dillashaw against former stablemates if the occasion calls for it, whether the champ likes it or not. It’s business versus martial arts, individual versus team sport. No matter what side each falls on, it’s about self-preservation.

Dillashaw’s centerpiece assertion revolves around being paid to train, like he will be in Colorado, and it is irresistible. Faber does not believe that’s how the sport works. When someone reaches the top, they pay others for training; they don’t get paid to train. It begs the question: Would Dillashaw train at Elevation Fight Team without the financial incentive? If it goes away, does he submit a transfer back to Team Alpha Male? The Ludwig factor says probably not, but the fact is Faber cultivated an environment he believes you can’t put a price on, and Dillashaw priced it as not worth his time. Dillashaw said, “If I’m allowed to, I’d love to” still be involved in Sacramento. He struggled to explain his side without tears. That’s because he knows it doesn’t make sense for exes to wait for the departed to return whenever they get around to it.

Faber’s concerns are legit from a mentor, teammate and friend. Who is telling our champion that it’s best the people that shaped him into a divisional kingpin kick rocks? Why trust Dillashaw to not hurt Team Alpha Male fighters if he returns to spar? Would a former New England Patriot be allowed in the Patriots locker room during strategy meetings after leaving for the Green Bay Packers?

Dillashaw is within his rights to declare his career The Dillashaw Show. However, in doing so, he told those who committed countless hours to his UFC title bid that reinvesting the same energy for them going forward was subject to change.

Faber versus Dillashaw advances the oldest storyline in combat: teacher versus student. Recall the magnitude of Jon Jones’UFC light heavyweight title defense against former teammate Rashad Evans in 2012, and consider how Faber-Dillashaw is much more involved. Jones and Evans were teammates for 18 months, compared to six years for Faber and Dillashaw. The Faber-Dillashaw years-in-the-making fight story arc would be older than the UFC’s bantamweight division itself, which would make it one of its most anticipated and significant fights.

Dillashaw’s separation digs former UFC 135-pound champ Dominick Cruz’s “Team Alpha Fail” dagger deeper. A favorite Cruz diss to Faber’s Sacramento collective: “What can they teach, overhand rights and guillotines?” Cruz called attention to the team’s alleged ceiling, and Dillashaw’s exodus props up his belief. Cruz never lost the title Dillashaw holds. Nothing is more personal to the UFC’s inaugural bantamweight king than being champion because his situation is unprecedented. Injury, not Dillashaw, cost Cruz his title. He is obsessed about being the rightful champion. In Cruz’s mind, all the Team Alpha Male drama should be the division’s B-story to his historical title reign.

Cruz spent just two years as champion. He amassed four 135-pound title defenses between 2009 and 2011 in the WEC and UFC. The Alliance MMA rep bested Faber in the UFC’s first sub-155-pound main event at UFC 132 in July 2011. His two UFC bantamweight title defenses came within the division’s first six months in the Octagon. Terrible fortune has since limited Cruz to one Octagon appearance in the last four years, wasting his late 20s doing rehabilitation exercises instead of fighting. His reentry into the title picture against Dillashaw makes for one of bantamweight’s most anticipated and significant fights because of the half decade leading up to it. All this brews bantamweight’s formative history into compelling fare that constitutes a marquee future. It’s the one silver lining in this heap of misfortune, but it’s a damn good one.

Bantamweight’s Faber-Dillashaw saga and Cruz’s stopped-short place in history bring to light the most distressful truth in the sport: Everything here today can be gone tomorrow, and everything once in its rightful place can rupture into a nightmare.

Danny Acosta is a SiriusXM Rush (Channel 93) host and contributor. His writing has been featured on Sherdog.com for nearly a decade. Find him on Twitter and Instagram @acostaislegend.