5 times former teammates headlined UFC shows against one another

#4. Georges St-Pierre vs. Carlos Condit – UFC 154

There was no bad blood between Georges St-Pierre and Carlos Condit - but they went to war anyway.

Usually, when two teammates face off in the octagon, there’s serious bad blood between them. However, that wasn’t the case in the welterweight title bout between champion Georges St-Pierre and interim titleholder Carlos Condit at UFC 154.

It’s probably fair to say that the two men were never purported to be close friends. That’s because despite training together with Greg Jackson’s team in Albuquerque, New Mexico, GSP’s primary training camp was at the Tri-Star Gym in Montreal.

However, they’d definitely been sparring for many years by the time Condit was offered a shot at St-Pierre’s title in late 2011. Interestingly, it was a shot that he’d been after for a long time. Condit had even stated so in a 2010 interview despite affirming his respect for the Canadian.

That initial booking fell through due to an injury to St-Pierre. However, after ‘The Natural Born Killer’ beat Nick Diaz for an interim title, the UFC immediately booked a unification bout. Both GSP and Condit were perfectly happy to run with it.

One reason for this cordial nature was the attitude of Jackson, who decided to step back from the fight altogether, refusing to corner either of his students. Given what’d happened when two Jackson-trained fighters – Rashad Evans and Jon Jones – had faced off before, that made perfect sense.

In the end, St-Pierre was able to just about edge Condit out in an epic clash despite suffering a bad knockdown in the third round. The two men continued to spar together at Jackson’s camp till GSP’s retirement in 2013.

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#3. TJ Dillashaw vs. Cody Garbrandt – UFC 227

TJ Dillashaw and Cody Garbrandt’s bitter rivalry ended with two wins for Dillashaw.

When it comes to former teammates having bad blood with one another before clashing in the UFC, it’s difficult to top TJ Dillashaw and Cody Garbrandt.

The two bantamweights had been close friends and training partners at Team Alpha Male. However, by the time they squared off in the octagon, any notion of friendship between the two was well and truly dead.

Interestingly, both men had entered the world of MMA as proteges of Urijah Faber. However, Dillashaw climbed to the top first, beating Renan Barao to win the UFC Bantamweight title in 2014.

However, on winning the title, Dillashaw chose to exit Team Alpha Male. He instead hooked up with the team’s former striking coach, Duane Ludwig, permanently.

While Faber and company initially seemed fine with that, it didn’t take long for the bad blood to begin to flow. That was particularly the case after Garbrandt surged up the rankings in 2016, and captured the title from Dominick Cruz, who’d unseated Dillashaw earlier that year.

With Dillashaw then positioned as the top contender, nasty stories quickly began to leak out from Team Alpha Male suggesting that their former fighter had injured teammates in training, and accused him of using PEDs.

Naturally, that turned his rivalry with ‘No Love’ into one of the biggest feuds in the promotion. After Dillashaw knocked Garbrandt out to regain the gold in late 2017, it came as no surprise to see the UFC book a rematch in the headline slot of a major pay-per-view.

UFC 227 quickly became one of 2018’s must-see events. However, despite largely being seen as the ‘good guy’ in the feud, things didn’t go so well for Garbrandt. He suffered another knockout loss, and hasn’t really been the same since then.