UFC bantamweight Cody “No Love” Garbrandt is not happy about Ian “Uncle Creepy” McCall’s latest rant.
Speaking with Bloody Elbow, McCall turned his attention away from his upcoming UFC 183 scrap with John Lineker and focused his laser beam of derision upon Sacramento, California’s esteemed Team Alpha Male.
‘Team Alpha Male are nice guys, but they come off as the douchiest camp, and I’ve told some of their guys this,’ McCall told Bloody Elbow. ‘They’re the douchebag frat guys of MMA. They walk around flexing with their shirts off, bumping chests and just seem like they would be the guys that would try to bang your girlfriend when your back is turned. Good for you, you’re the coolest guys in Sacramento. There’s only one of you that’s ever going to be champion, and that’s T.J. Dillashaw, and they treated him like the red-headed stepchild for a while.’
To Garbrandt, this criticism of himself and his teammates will not fly.
McCall is currently the No. 3-ranked flyweight in the world, and Garbrandt only recently made his UFC debut at bantamweight, defeating Marcus Brimage at UFC 182 via third-round knockout. Despite this, No Love is willing to cut the weight and accept the fight against McCall to defend himself and his camp.
“I always say, ‘Honor thy mother and go to war for my brother,'” Garbrandt told Bleacher Report in a phone interview. “I would kill for these dudes. Those are my brothers, and I protect my family. I’ll protect the house against all invaders.”
The biggest issue here is the matter of Garbrandt‘s weight. He’s a bantamweight, and a 10-pound weight cut is significant.
But the 23-year-old knockout artist is confident in his ability to shed the pounds, especially if it means he’ll receive the chance to touch up McCall inside the UFC Octagon.
“It’s just going to take preparation, like anything. I’ll need to diet, stay strict and dedicated,” Garbrandt said. “I’ll make 126 pounds and hydrate back up. It’s definitely worth a shot. I’ll talk to some professionals about it and see what they think. I’m at 146 pounds right now and I’ve been eating like s–t. It’s doable.
“I just need to let him know, ‘You’re not going to call me a d——-g to my face and walk away with that mustache still attached to your lip.’ If I can make ’25 and (UFC Matchmaker) Sean Shelby wants to match it up, I’ll whoop his ass. That’d be fun.”
McCall previously fought Team Alpha Male star Joseph Benavidez at UFC 156, losing via decision.
According to Garbrandt, McCall knows he’s unlikely to fight Benavidez again due to the result of their first encounter. Because of that, he’s confident in tossing these latest verbal grenades from beneath a security blanket, knowing Team Alpha Male doesn’t have any other top flyweight contenders.
That’s where Garbrandt would like to pull back the curtain and teach Uncle Creepy a lesson in respect.
“Everybody on our team would whoop his (McCall’s) ass,” Garbrandt said. “But the ’35 pounders are at 135 and can’t make ’25. But I can. So he thought he was safe calling out Team Alpha Male and getting some notoriety off us because we’re the hottest team in the world right now.
“Well, he f—-d up, because I’ll cut down and whoop his ass.”
For Garbrandt, this decision to potentially drop to flyweight is not made in haste, and it’s not purely a reaction to McCall’s words.
“We actually thought about this before the Brimage fight,” Garbrandt said. “I was 136 pounds two weeks before the fight, and basically I said, ‘F–k it, I’ll eat what I want.’ I started eating all kinds of stuff, I was eating In-N-Out burgers and all kinds of s–t just to keep my weight up. My weight gets low without even trying.”
Once at 125, Garbrandt would then like to stay active, bouncing between flyweight and bantamweight if need be. He’s in the UFC to fight, to leave his mark and a legacy. Whichever division that occurs in is an afterthought to him.
“Moving to 125 wouldn’t be just to whoop Ian McCall. Yeah, moving down to whoop Ian McCall is awesome, but I think I can be a threat in that division as well,” Garbrandt said. “I want to have longevity with the UFC. It’s a dream come true to be with the UFC, so I just want to have longevity with them.
“Whether it’s at 125 or 135, I want to be that fighter Sean Shelby can call up and say, ‘Hey, can you fight this guy here?’ Here’s my thing: Real fighters fight. I’ve fought my whole life. I’ve fought whoever they put in front of me. Whether it was in boxing or in the street or whatever, I’ve never backed down from a fight.”
And if his multi-divisional journey begins with Uncle Creepy, Garbrandt knows how the first chapter will conclude.
“I’d bully him in there,” Garbrandt said. “He called us the frat guys, well, he’s about to get initiated, because I’d bully him in there. He won’t last a round. Dude, I’ll come out and just lay him out in a round.
“I’ve seen him fight. He’s never impressed me. He called out Team Alpha Male, but he couldn’t last a week here. He wouldn’t last one sparring session.”
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