T.J. Dillashaw says he'll be sidelined for just three months to recover from knee surgery

If all goes well, T.J. Dillashaw won’t be out for as long as may have initially been believed.

Dillashaw (16-4 MMA, 12-4 UFC) successfully underwent surgery to repair his left knee this past Thursday.  The former UFC bantamweight champion went under the knife after sustaining several tears in his fight against Cory Sandhagen last month.

“I had a medial meniscus bucket handle tear, a lateral meniscus tear, and a PCL tear,” Dillashaw told Brendan Schaub this past Saturday during “UFC 265 Calabasas Fight Companion.” “I’m just glad it wasn’t ACL. I’m happy with the results because it would’ve been nine months (if it would’ve been an ACL tear).

“I’m looking at a three-month recovery right now until I get back to training, (then) fight for the title at the beginning of next year.”

Dillashaw made his long-awaited comeback on July 24 in the main event of UFC on ESPN 27, where he outpointed Sandhagen to win a split decision. It was his first fight since serving a two-year U.S. Anti-Doping Agency suspension that stemmed from a positive drug test for EPO in early 2019.

Dillashaw remembers the exact moment where he blew out his knee in the fight against Sandhagen.

“So it was the last 30 seconds of the round, and I was in like a lazy leglock,” Dillashaw recalled. “We were in the 50/50 position, and I was completely out of it, but I was chilling. I knew I won the round, so I was going to sit up top and let the round finish out, but then he turned and started punching me. So I was like, ‘All right, b*tch,’ and I started hitting him back for my own ground-and-pound.

“I came in hard on my own leg and started ground-and-pounding, and we got into a scramble. He tried to get up on his feet, and I went to sit up on top, so I leaned my chest over my own body, and at the same time my LCL just went, ‘pow.’

“It was loud, dude. I’m surprised he didn’t hear it or feel it because I heard it when it happened. As soon as the round was over, I sat down and I said, ‘My knee is f*cked.’ They bleeped it out because it’s ESPN.”