Dominick Cruz is coming off of his first mixed martial arts (MMA) loss in almost a decade, when 25-year-old knockout artist Cody Garbrandt shook up the 135-pound weight class by out-classing ‘The Dominator’ for 25 minutes and capturing the division’s crown.
The defeat marks only the second notch in Cruz’s loss column, where his first came at the hands of Garbrandt’s coach and mentor, Urijah Faber, who submitted the now-former bantamweight champ back in 2007 during his WEC debut. After two follow-up attempts to get the job done one more time in the UFC proved unsuccessful, Faber was able to groom and mold ‘No Love’ to give Team Alpha Male its first victory over Cruz.
Following his historic win Garbrandt instantly started laying the foundation for an immediate rematch with Cruz, brushing off former teammate and No. 2-ranked TJ Dillashaw’s claim to the next shot at the title.
Cruz recently co-hosted TMZ Sports (via MMA Fighting) and discussed Garbrandt’s desire to promptly rematch him, to which the Alliance MMA product stated ‘No Love’ is pushing for the bout because he knows it’s the only fight that ‘raises the bar’ in the 135-pound division:
“I expect him to be mad at me from that camp. I embarrassed him pretty good leading up to it with the things that I said which where the honest truth and he proved they were the truth by getting mad. But more than anything he keeps saying, ‘I’m at the top’ and ‘rematch, rematch.’ You’ve got the title. Why are you asking to rematch me?
“He knows that I am better than him. He wants the rematch because I’m the only fight that really raises the bar in this division.”
Throughout the course of the match-up Garbrandt continued to mock Cruz by dancing, sticking his tongue out, and even dropping down to the canvas for a quick push-up before bouncing back up and resuming to fight. While fans in attendance and watching at home on pay-per-view (PPV) may have enjoyed Garbrandt’s shenanigans, Cruz isn’t too big of a fan:
“If you’re in there to fight me fight me. Don’t back up the whole time and dance… He’s trying to portray that he’s this tough guy that wanted it to go that long.”
It is expected that Cruz will take some time off before returning to Octagon action once again, but one thing is for sure to him — Upon his return he will be competing for the title once again, but as for his opponent, he isn’t 100 percent sure it’ll be Garbrandt standing across from him:
“Whenever I come back, I’m fighting for the title. I don’t know who it’s gonna be though.”
“It was a good fight. It was competitive the whole time. I’m out there to put a show on. that team alone has 35 rounds against me. It was about time they got one.”
You can check out Cruz’s interview with TMZ Sports here:
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