No. 5-ranked UFC bantamweight Cody Garbrandt will be next in line to challenge for 135-pound champ Dominick Cruz’s title, and although 13 previous combatants couldn’t get the job done against ‘The Dominator’, ‘No Love’ is confident he has what it takes to hand Cruz his first professional mixed martial arts (MMA) loss in nearly a decade.
Garbrandt currently sports an undefeated MMA record with 10 wins, finishing all but one of those contests via knockout. During a recent interview with FOX Sports, Garbrandt stated that his power mixed with his extensive boxing background, along with his ability to cut off the cage will be enough for him to secure the bantamweight title:
“He doesn’t impress me,” Garbrandt said. “He doesn’t impress me because he’s not fighting fighters who know how to cut off the cage. He never fought a fighter who has a high resume boxing pedigree such as myself.
“Nothing at all really surprises me or I’m in awe about that he does. He’s actually a very unorthodox fighter but if you look at his patterns and his movements when he strikes and when he moves and when he evades and darts out, it’s all the same. It’s always been the same. Dominick’s not a fighter that evolves over time. He’s stayed the same and no one has been able to figure him out because he’s never fought a fighter that’s been able to match him. Kind of target him and chase him down.”
The 31-year-old Cruz has competed in 23 MMA bouts throughout his illustrious career, losing only once to Garbrandt’s mentor and Cruz’s longtime rival Urijah Faber via first round submission in the WEC in 2007, with 14 of those wins coming by way of decision.
Garbrandt credits the majority of Cruz’s success to ‘point fighting’ and plans to utilize what he believes to be superior speed and hunt his adversary down and force him into a slug-fest:
“I’m faster than him. I hit way harder than him. I’m (expletive) way meaner than him. He’s not a mean fighter. He doesn’t try to get in there and get into a fight. He wants to point, punch and that’s fine,” Garbrandt said. “This whole camp getting ready for that.
“I’ve had people trying to get me frustrated and annoyed with running, chasing them down and I’m still getting them.”
Cruz has been competing in the sport of MMA since 2005, while ‘No Love’ got his first professional fight in 2012 just four years ago. While Cruz holds the experience edge heading into their bout, Garbrandt claims he has yet to see any evolution in Cruz’s game over the years, and instead has observed the longtime 135-pound champ wear himself down:
“I see the same Dominick Cruz. I don’t see any improvements,” Garbrandt said. “All I really see is an older, beat up, crippled, decrepit fighter that’s going to step in there on Dec. 30. He’s probably got two good rounds of movement. Halfway through the second and he’ll slow down and be looking for a way out.”
As previously mentioned, the majority of Garbrandt’s success inside the cage has come due to his tremendous punching power which have resulted in nine knockouts out of his 10 career wins. However, Garbrandt feels as though Cruz is underestimating his abilities on the mat as well, and ‘No Love’ is prepared to take the bout anywhere it needs to go for him to get the win:
“I’m going to beat him anywhere. I’m a better wrestler, my jiu-jitsu’s better, but go ahead and think that Dominick, that I don’t have any of that. I don’t work on any of that. I’m just a knockout artist and that’s what I’m going to go out there and do,” Garbrandt said. “That’s what I go out there and do and I get it done, but if the fight needs to go wherever it needs to go, I’m by far the more supreme, more dominant fighter in every area that it goes to.
“I’m the meanest mother (expletive) he’s ever going to meet in there. I guarantee you that. I’m not going to give him an inch in there. We’re in there, I’m taking his head off. I’m not leaving without the ‘W’.”
Along with tormenting the 135-pound division, Cruz has taken a job working on the FOX Sports analysts’ desk where he has thrived. Garbrandt sees this as a ‘one foot out the door’ scenario for Cruz, and claims to be hungrier than ‘The Dominator’ who is already planning for the next chapter of his life:
“He got that job at FOX broadcasting, I’m glad they brought him on, he’s very good at color commentary but he’s getting ready for the next chapter of his life. It’s evident. You can see,” Garbrandt said. “He knows. He knows that he is getting ready for that next chapter of his life without the belt.
“When you’re thinking about the next chapter of your life and you’ve got a (expletive) savage in front of you like myself that’s been grinding to take this from you, grinding so hungry. A wolf at the bottom of the mountain is hungrier than a wolf at the top. He’s done well. I can’t knock him for that, he’s skated by on decisions but I leave no doubt, no question that I’m going to be the world champion.”
Cruz and Garbrandt will meet in the co-main event of UFC 207 live on pay-per-view (PPV) for the UFC bantamweight title, from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 30, 2016.
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