If he sits and dwells on the topic too long, Cody Garbrandt can still find himself frustrated with rival T.J. Dillashaw’s drug test failure for EPO.

The pair had a famous bantamweight rivalry throughout 2017 and 2018, meeting twice for the 135-pound title inside the Octagon, with Dillashaw walking out the winner on both occasions.

Of course, those wins are hard to look at and not at least consider them in a different light, as earlier this year Dillashaw failed a USADA test for the banned substance EPO. Unfortunately for Garbrandt, it was following Dillashaw’s contest with Henry Cejudo that he got caught for cheating, meaning his wins over Garbrandt remain victories in the record book.

Certainly, Garbrandt has a grievance that it took so long for Dillashaw to get caught, particularly as he believes Dillashaw’s been cheating for years.

“He stole a lot from me,” Garbrandt said, speaking to the gathered media backstage at UFC Sacramento (H/T MMAJunkie). “I wasn’t surprised at all. I was surprised that’s the first time USADA’s ever tested for EPO. I stated back in — what was it 2017 — that I’d like to do more invasive testing. We have to log in everywhere we go. We have to answer the door at 6:00am, piss, urine, blood, everything, write down every supplement we have. There should be no boundaries or picos or this or that. You either cheat or you don’t.

“The first time [Dillashaw] got tested for EPO was when he fought Henry? It’s crazy. What are they even testing for? We’re not in there shooting steroids and getting big, they’re doing EPO. They’re doing all that kind of shit to cardio base. I knew that, I knew T.J. was on that and that’s why I said I wanted more invasive testing. He’s been on it for five, six years. And that’s not the only thing he’s on. There’s a lot of other fighters that are on shit too.

“So, if you’re gonna draw a line on what we can do or how we can test.. you can’t keep this sample, we can’t detect EPO.. then what are we getting tested for? Let it all be legal and let’s all get juiced up and go in there and fuck each other up.”