Former UFC lightweight champion TJ Dillashaw said that he had to lie to referee Herb Dean to continue the fight with Cory Sandhagen, which he eventually won by a split decision of the judges.
Dillashaw and Sandhagen fought for 25 minutes to a narrow split decision back in July that the judges ultimately gave to the former champ. Speaking to Submission Radio following the fight, Dillashaw admitted there was a chance that the fight could have been stopped because he had an injury to his eye that meant he had vision problems. According to Sandhagen, however, he lied to the referee and told him that he could still see fine.
“I guess camp kinda prepared me to be able to deal with injuries in the fight, I guess. Because I had to kinda bury my injuries down deep during fight camp, and I had to definitely do it during the fight. And then let alone getting open in the second round, my eye, having to lie to the ref and tell him I can see, I just didn’t want the fight to get stopped,” Dillashaw said
“The doctor came in, I was like, ‘Yeah, man, I got it. Don’t worry. I can see.’ And at the time, I couldn’t, so walking out I was sure to take his wipey and I tried to wipe my eye even more and they told me I wasn’t able to do that, so just kinda had to tough it out, really, to be honest.”
The victory over Sundhagen takes TJ Dillashaw to the top echelon of the UFC’s bantamweight division. He is currently recovering from the war with Sundhagen, but when Dillashaw returns to the Octagon, he will be able to fight either UFC 267 winner Aljamain Sterling against Petr Yan, or possibly face former UFC champion Jose Aldo in the # 1 contenders match.