Chris Holdsworth refutes Cody Garbrandt’s claims that TJ Dillashaw ended his career

Back in November of 2013, Team Alpha Male‘s Chris Holdsworth won season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter with a second-round rear-naked choke win over Davey Grant. In May of 2014, he scored a decision win over Chico Camus, moving to 2-0 in the Octagon and 6-0 overall, and establishing himself as one of the brightest young prospects in the UFC bantamweight division.

He has not been seen in the cage since.

The reason for Holdsworth’s long absence from the cage, of course, is widely known. He has been dealing with some unfortunate concussion issues, which have prevented him from fighting, but at least allow him to train and coach at Team Alpha Male.

While we have known for some time that Holdsworth has been dealing with concussion troubles, the cause of these concussions has remained a mystery. That said, Holdsworth’s training partner Cody Garbrandt recently claimed that former training partner TJ Dillashaw was responsible for Holdsworth’s career-ending concussion trouble.

https://twitter.com/Cody_Nolove/status/854942568563355648

Initially, there was no way to verify the validity of this claim for Garbrandt. Now, however, Holdsworth has come out and denied it outright, claiming that nobody – least of all Dillashaw – can be blamed for the grim turn his promising career took.

No one ended my career!! You don't know what you're talking about.

— Chris Holdsworth (@HoldsworthMMA) April 23, 2017

Garbrandt, who currently holds the UFC bantamweight crown, will have the opportunity to settle his beef with Dillashaw, who is the former champ, at UFC 213 this July 8.

Garbrandt will enter this fight with a perfect, 11-0 record. When we last saw him in action, he won the bantamweight title with a perfectly-executed upset of dominant champ Dominick Cruz. Dillashaw, meanwhile, is currently on a two-fight streak, having rebounded from a controversial title loss to Cruz with back-to-back decision triumphs over Raphael Assuncao and John Lineker.

Before the two fighters battle for gold, they will serve as rival coaches on the latest season of the Ultimate Fighter, which is now underway.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/24/2017.