Since coming over to the UFC from World Series of Fighting, Marlon Moraes has had his eyes on the bantamweight title, and for much of that time, that title was held by T.J. Dillashaw. After suffering a setback in his promotional debut, Moraes has gone on to win four in a row and it appeared a title fight against Dillashaw was next, until Dillashaw relinquished his title after failing a USADA test for EPO. Now, Moraes is set to face flyweight champion Henry Cejudo for the vacant 135-pound belt but he can’t pretend like he’s not disappointed with the situation.

“We are all disappointed,” Moraes told MMANews recently. “It was a fairy tale. We don’t know if he’s really that good of a fighter. It’s hard cause every time we get into camp, we want to get into shape, we want to get our conditioning good and this guy he wasn’t worried at all about that. If he was cheating now, he was cheating before.

“He goes on the media and tries to say he’s giving up the belt. I think he was just trying to trick the fans but at the end of the day, what happened? They suspended him and I’m nobody to judge him but now he’s going to have to pay for what he did.”

Dillashaw is paying. After relinquishing his title before he could be stripped, Dillashaw accepted a two-year suspension from USADA for his EPO failure. While not a lifetime ban, it is still one of the harsher penalties levied against a fighter in recent years. But Moraes still thinks it is not enough.

“Two years is not enough,” Moraes said. “It’s not enough for what he does, it was really serious, that’s my opinion.”

EPO is used to stimulate red blood cell growth for improved cardiovascular abilities. It has historically shown up in endurance competitions, most notably cycling. EPO requires a special test to be detected though and, until recently, USADA had not been performing that on all samples collected. As a result, Moraes believes that’s Dillashaw’s entire career should be put into question, because he most likely was doping the whole time.

“He was cheating the system and that wasn’t the first time,” Moraes said. “That wasn’t the first time he was going to do it now with USADA all over everyone. Before, USADA wasn’t even around and I believe he was doing it before.”

Moraes doesn’t have much time to dwell on Dillashaw’s failure. The former WSOF star gets his first chance for UFC gold this summer, when takes on Henry Cejudo at UFC 238 on June 8 in Chicago, Ill.

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VIDEO STEW

The final A-Side Live Chat with Marc Raimondi.

Top 5 finishes of Jacare in the UFC.

Luke coming after USADA for the Tom Lawlor case, which is fair.

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SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

That’s not what interim means...

Troll.

Statement.

On the come up.

Sugar Show.

That is unfortunate.

Mike Perry gonna Mike Perry.

Don’t say Damien Brown isn’t trying to fight. Dude calls out anyone.

Javier Mendez has been traveling through Dagestan with Khabib and the crew. I recommend checking out his Instagram if you’re interested.

TJ getting to work early on the redemption narrative.

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FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

N/A.

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TODAY IN MMA HISTORY

2003: Matt Hughes won a unanimous decision over Sean Sherk to retain his welterweight title at UFC 42.

2004: Fedor Emelianenko submitted Mark Coleman with an armbar at Pride FC Total Elimination 2004, kicking off the Pride 2004 heavyweight grand prix. Also that evening, Kevin Randleman famously knocked out Mirko Cro Cop.

2015: Demetrious Johnson successfully defended his flyweight title, submitting Kyoji Horiguchi with an armbar a 4:59 of the fifth round at UFC 186.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Thanks for reading and see y’all tomorrow.

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EXIT POLL

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