Urijah Faber on Dominick Cruz’s ‘Alpha Fails’ quip: ‘My third-grader was upset’

At least one person at Team Alpha Male was upset when Dominick Cruz took to the mic at UFC 178 and referred to Urijah Faber’s Sacramento gym as “Alpha Fails.”

“We’ve got a third-grader who trains with us, and he came up to me one day and he was like ‘did you hear what Dominick Cruz said?'” Faber told MMAFighting.com. “I told him we were going to put Cruz in timeout for hurting his feelings. My third-grader was upset over it.”

Cruz captured a substantial portion of the buzz following a newsworthy card on Sept. 27 in Las Vegas, when he scored a swift TKO of veteran Takeya Mizugaki in Cruz’s first fight in three years.

Faber and Cruz have a rivalry dating back to 2007, when Faber handed Cruz his only professional loss in a WEC featherweight title defense. Cruz won the rematch in a UFC bantamweight title bout at UFC 132. After a season together on The Ultimate Fighter, the two were slated to meet in a trilogy fight at UFC 148, but Cruz had to pull out with the first in a series of injuries which kept him out of action.

In case you thought the beef had simmered down in the interim, it’s clear Faber would only offer Cruz backhanded compliments at best.

“I mean, the impressive thing here was that he actually got a finish, you know,” Faber said. “I didn’t think he could do that. I’m pretty sure the only guy he ever actually had a finish over was something like 1-5. So to see Dom do that, yeah, that was impressive.”

In his postfight interview, Cruz made his “Alpha Fails” quip. He’s 3-1 against Team Alpha Male fighters, splitting two bouts with Faber and winning a pair of decisions against Joseph Benavidez. He’ll have a fifth fight when he meets T.J. Dillashaw for the bantamweight belt on a date to be determined.

Faber was equally dismissive of Cruz’s insult as he was his victory.

“I mean, we weren’t really sitting around thinking about Cruz these past three years,” Faber said. “We’ve been out winning fights and winning titles and starting businesses. I guess he was just sitting around with his surgeon thinking about us and thinking about what he’d say when he came back. And then all he could come up with was a third-grade insult.”

At least one person at Team Alpha Male was upset when Dominick Cruz took to the mic at UFC 178 and referred to Urijah Faber’s Sacramento gym as “Alpha Fails.”

“We’ve got a third-grader who trains with us, and he came up to me one day and he was like ‘did you hear what Dominick Cruz said?'” Faber told MMAFighting.com. “I told him we were going to put Cruz in timeout for hurting his feelings. My third-grader was upset over it.”

Cruz captured a substantial portion of the buzz following a newsworthy card on Sept. 27 in Las Vegas, when he scored a swift TKO of veteran Takeya Mizugaki in Cruz’s first fight in three years.

Faber and Cruz have a rivalry dating back to 2007, when Faber handed Cruz his only professional loss in a WEC featherweight title defense. Cruz won the rematch in a UFC bantamweight title bout at UFC 132. After a season together on The Ultimate Fighter, the two were slated to meet in a trilogy fight at UFC 148, but Cruz had to pull out with the first in a series of injuries which kept him out of action.

In case you thought the beef had simmered down in the interim, it’s clear Faber would only offer Cruz backhanded compliments at best.

“I mean, the impressive thing here was that he actually got a finish, you know,” Faber said. “I didn’t think he could do that. I’m pretty sure the only guy he ever actually had a finish over was something like 1-5. So to see Dom do that, yeah, that was impressive.”

In his postfight interview, Cruz made his “Alpha Fails” quip. He’s 3-1 against Team Alpha Male fighters, splitting two bouts with Faber and winning a pair of decisions against Joseph Benavidez. He’ll have a fifth fight when he meets T.J. Dillashaw for the bantamweight belt on a date to be determined.

Faber was equally dismissive of Cruz’s insult as he was his victory.

“I mean, we weren’t really sitting around thinking about Cruz these past three years,” Faber said. “We’ve been out winning fights and winning titles and starting businesses. I guess he was just sitting around with his surgeon thinking about us and thinking about what he’d say when he came back. And then all he could come up with was a third-grade insult.”