SHARE

A former teammate of TJ Dillashaw, Chris Holdsworth has broken his silence surrounding a gym incident.

In the lead up to the highly anticipated bantamweight UFC 217 title fight between champion Cody Garbrandt and challenger and former Team Alpha Male training partner TJ Dillashaw there has been a lot of talk about what type of person Dillashaw is behind the gym doors.

Talk like how he apparently intentionally injured his teammates including Chris Holdsworth. According to Garbrandt, Dillashaw deliberately kneed Holdsworth on the back of the head during a sparring session that left him with a concussion, something that has kept the undefeated UFC fighter out of action since 2014.

Dillashaw, the former champion, immediately denied the accusations thrown at him by his former teammates, giving his side of events. His denial of the incident obviously reached the ears and eyes of Holdsworth, who has kept out the Dillashaw vs. Team Alpha Male beef, and he has finally broken his silence.

Holdsworth appeared on the most recent edition of The MMA Hour where he opened up to Ariel Helwani about what actually happened between the two men.

“I’ve been quiet about this for awhile, Holdsworth said on The MMA Hour. “I’m just not the type of person to jump into people’s feuds or drama. I like to lay low and just do my thing, but there’s been some talk, and after I heard T.J. lying about the subject, I’ve got to speak up on it.

“T.J. has always been a great fighter, he’s a great athlete, but he’s always had, I don’t know, some type of competitive feud with me ever since I came to the team. I don’t know if it was because of envy or jealousy or whatever it was, but I just kinda always brushed it off as him being competitive and being, just, ultra-aggressive. I was always up for the fight, but there was multiple occasions where T.J. got a little bit too aggressive, he went overboard in training. He’s kneeing you while we’re boxing. He’s throwing elbows while we’re doing jiu-jitsu. And I remember that instance that’s out in the public — yeah, it’s definitely true.”

The incident occurred close to when Holdsworth was expected to appear on the 18th season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter‘, which could have caused him to withdraw from the show due to injury in turn potentially ending his career before it even started.

“I shot in on T.J. and I was on all fours, he was sprawled out and he kneed me on top of the head. And that was before The Ultimate Fighter. I remember I was kinda jarred up and everyone was watching, and I took like 30 seconds off and I kept going, I kept going through the rounds and I finished practice. But after that practice, I was concussed, and that was my first concussion. And it just kinda kept happening from there.”

The entire interview can be viewed above. With UFC 217 literally days away the timing of Holdsworth’s break in silence is very interesting and could well add more fire to an already intense blaze between Garbarndt and Dillashaw.