Dominick Cruz once again speaks about his recent comments about Daniel Cormier’s commentary.
Former champion Dominick Cruz made some noteworthy comments during the lead-up of his UFC 269 fight with Pedro Munhoz last week. Cruz, who is also a color commentator for the UFC, said he would usually mute the broadcast whenever fellow analyst Daniel Cormier was on the booth.
Cormier and Cruz later talked face-to-face and everything was settled. On Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour, “The Dominator” was asked whether or not he regretted what he said. This was his response:
“I don’t regret what I said… What I regret, I guess, is where I said it.”@DominickCruz tells @arielhelwani he stands by his criticism of Daniel Cormier’s commentary, but media day may not have been the best forum.
Full interview on #TheMMAHour ?? https://t.co/1tzjta4t5v pic.twitter.com/poQS9OosFK
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) December 14, 2021
“I don’t regret what I said. Because I hadn’t eaten in three days, I hadn’t drank in two days. They were asking me questions, I spoke from my heart. I never really regret what I said because I wasn’t mean. I was very loving,” Cruz told Ariel Helwani.
“What I regret, I guess, is where I said it. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it there because that allowed the media to take it and do whatever they want with it.”
When Cormier previously confronted him about his comments, Cruz said that the “media did you dirty, not me.”
Cruz also drew attention from some after he gave props to Marc Goddard for giving him a “chance to rebound” in the moments he was in trouble against Munhoz. According to him, people somehow found a connection to his past statements about referee Keith Peterson, who oversaw his UFC 249 title fight with Henry Cejudo in 2020.
“I said it after my post-fight, too. I gave kudos to Marc Goddard and the Las Vegas Commission for the great job they did with the show. And I heard it in that moment in the interview, he said, ‘Well look, you took a stab at Keith Peterson, I noticed, and you gave kudos to Marc Goddard.’ And I said, ‘Hold on one second, that’s exactly what happened with me and Cormier, right there.’
“Whatever got said, you can twist it and hear your interpretation and write a headline that everybody’s gonna click. That’s the world we live in today. But the truth is, I never said anything bad about Keith Peterson. You did. And I gave kudos to Marc Goddard, and that got turned into me talking bad about Keith Peterson? How does that happen?”
Cruz eventually gave somewhat of an answer to his Octagon interview statements to Joe Rogan, where he urged people to “come together” and “stay connected,”
“That’s the world we live in today because we take interpretations and we make them facts. And now everything’s a mess. And that’s what’s happening on the internet, and that’s what’s allowed all this grey area that nobody knows what the heck’s going on anymore.
“That’s why we have to stay together. Eye-to-eye, in person. And when you stay and look at somebody and say, ‘I didn’t say that. You did,’ it creates an accountability conversation and we move forward in a clear place. And so I did that.”
After two straight losses courtesy of Cejudo and Cody Garbrandt, Cruz is now on a two-fight win streak. He also closed out his year with a $50K bonus for Fight of the Night.