(photo by Tracy Lee for Yahoo! Sports)
With the announcement that UFC bantamweight champ Dominick “Dominator” Cruz (17-1) will be defending his title against Urijah Faber in the headliner of UFC 132, the spotlight will now focus a little more brightly on both men especially with a real feud between the two fueling media interest.
The July 2 bout will be a rematch of both men’s first meeting back in March of 2007, a first round submission win for Faber, the only loss of Cruz’ career. Since that time “Dominator” has won seven straight including winning three WEC bantamweight title bouts.
Speaking to MMAjunkie.com in Seattle, Cruz was at the UFN 24 event supporting fellow teammate Phil Davis, the champ aired his original issue with Faber. According to Cruz, originally his problems had nothing to do with the “California Kid”, but had everything to do with not being on the WEC 26 poster of their featherweight title fight.
“In the beginning it had nothing to do with him at all. In the very beginning, it had to do with the fact that I wasn’t even on the event poster and I was fighting him for a world title. That really got under my skin….Originally, it had nothing to do him, I felt like I deserved to be on that poster….”
“Losing that fight a long time ago was a surreal moment – kind of like winning the UFC belt was a surreal moment. So, I’m just going to kind of take it day by day as I prepare for the fight. I couldn’t be more excited. I feel like every fighter wants the opportunity to fight someone they’ve lost to in the past, and this is like the best-case scenario for me.”