The first ever and only two-time UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz made a successful return to the octagon this past January 17. Facing the champ of the time TJ Dillashaw after only fighting once in five years, following a string of harrowing and career threatening injuries, ‘The Dominator’ completed his fairy tale comeback with a
The first ever and only two-time UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz made a successful return to the octagon this past January 17. Facing the champ of the time TJ Dillashaw after only fighting once in five years, following a string of harrowing and career threatening injuries, ‘The Dominator’ completed his fairy tale comeback with a split decision win over ‘The Viper.’ Now set to face his old rival Urijah Faber in the rubber match at UFC 199, Cruz is once again embroiled in a feud with a member of Team Alpha Male.
First off it was Dillashaw who got the verbal bashing from Cruz, although that started back in 2014 when he was still a member of TAM. Now having left, it’s Faber who represents the California based fight squad, but ‘The Viper’ is never far from the conversation.
During a recent appearance on ‘The Herd,’ Faber pretty much accused his former team mate Dillashaw and Cruz of taking PED’s (performance enhancing drugs). Cruz shot him down during that interview, but the comments made by ‘The California Kid’ have not really been fully addressed. Not until now, that is.
Speaking during the most recent episode of The MMA Hour, Cruz tackles the subject of his beef with Faber, and also reacts to those accusations of steroid use levelled at him and Dillashaw.
“This is the thing, you can say whatever you need to say about me, I understand, all is fair in love and war. Like, I get that he is going to come and attack me. I get that he wants to attack my character. He’s been doing this to me since 2007. This is the Faber game. He wants to turn everybody against you and make himself the good guy. He can’t handle being the not liked guy.
“But, at the same time, this is all based off of fear. Judgment is the main act of fear. If I’m on [PEDs], what, is everybody on it? Everybody he’s lost to? This is his excuse. He’s setting up excuses for the loss that I’m about to serve him.”
After losing former UFC Bantamweight Champion T.J. Dillashaw recently, Team Alpha Male lost another one of its’ most established top fighters, as former UFC Flyweight title contender Joseph Benavide…
For Team Alpha Male — another one bites the dust.
After losing former UFC Bantamweight Champion T.J. Dillashaw recently, Team Alpha Male lost another one of its’ most established top fighters, as former UFC Flyweight title contender Joseph Benavidez has apparently parted ways with the California-based MMA team.
Much like Dillashaw, Benavidez is expected to end up representing the Elevation Fight Team, that is, according to Team Alpha Male coach Justin Buchholz.
Buchholz told the folks at Stud Radio the following about Joseph Benavidez parting ways with Team Alpha Male:
“He did leave the team. I mean, you train here in Sacramento, you’re part of Team Alpha Male, or you don’t live here. He hasn’t trained at all since I took over as head coach. I thought Joe would at least give a chance of me, and Danny, and Holdsworth running this new program along with Master Thong and Joey. But he never did. He came in town for one week, he moved his house, did, like, one boxing class. I’m not upset at him for leaving because he didn’t leave under me as head coach. He left when the team was hurting — we didn’t have a coach, we didn’t have much direction. So it is what it was.”
It appears No. 1 ranked UFC flyweight Joseph Benavidez (24-4) has followed in former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw’s footsteps, and has parted ways with Team Alpha Male. In a recent interview with Stud Show Radio via Bloody Elbow, Alpha Male head coach Justin Buchholz confirmed the news, “He did leave the team. I mean, you train here
It appears No. 1 ranked UFC flyweight Joseph Benavidez (24-4) has followed in former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw’s footsteps, and has parted ways with Team Alpha Male.
In a recent interview with Stud Show Radio via Bloody Elbow, Alpha Male head coach Justin Buchholz confirmed the news,
“He did leave the team. I mean, you train here in Sacramento, you’re part of Team Alpha Male, or you don’t live here,” Buchholz said.
“He hasn’t trained at all since I took over as head coach. I mean, I don’t know. I thought Joe would at least give a chance of me, and Danny, and Holdsworth running this new program along with Master Thong and Joey. But he never did. He came in town for one week, he moved his house, did, like, one boxing class.”
Joseph follows a similar blueprint as Dillashaw, who said his farewell to Sacramento to join Colorado’s Elevation Fight Team. Dillashaw left Team Alpha Male in October of last year for a lucrative contract in addition to be able to train with Ludwig for his title defense against the returning Dominick Cruz.
Dillashaw took a lot of heat from fellow teammates for leaving the camp, including his now-former friend and TAM founder Urijah Faber. Dillashaw would go on to lose his title bout via split decision following his first camp since leaving Alpha Male.
Buchholz holds no grudges however, and feels that Benavidez will reunite with his former teammate once again.
“I’m not upset at him for leaving because he didn’t leave under me as head coach,” he said. “I think he’s going to do some camps out there (Colorado).”
Benavidez is riding a five-fight win streak, including his recent unanimous decision win over Zach Makovsky in early February.
Reigning UFC bantamweight champion Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz recently bashed long-time rival Urijah Faber, saying that “The California Kid” has been gifted title shots throughout his career. Faber, however, begs to differ. “The California Kid” is a former WEC champion, but has indeed gone 0-3 in UFC title shots. One of those shots at UFC
Reigning UFC bantamweight champion Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz recently bashed long-time rival Urijah Faber, saying that “The California Kid” has been gifted title shots throughout his career.
Faber, however, begs to differ.
“The California Kid” is a former WEC champion, but has indeed gone 0-3 in UFC title shots. One of those shots at UFC gold came against Cruz at 2011’s UFC 132 in which “The Dominator” edged out a decision victory. Prior to that, Faber had submitted Cruz back at WEC 26 in 2007.
With Cruz now seemingly healthy after years of injuries, and Faber still near the top of the division, the time is now for the trilogy bout.
“The California Kid” seems overly excited to get his hands on Cruz one more time, recently taking to his official Instagram account to fire back at his rival, expressing his interest in breaking the “glass champ”:
“I keep hearing articles talking about me. Apparently@domcruz619 thinks something has been gifted in my life. I’ve had double the amount of fights that dude has in around the same amount of years, i have 5 more finishes than he has total fights, I’ve been a champion or a top contender for the last 13 years. Last time we fought i put MR. Hard to Hit on his ass multiple times. And the reason he is alive is because there are rules in mma and i was forced to let him live. I have jumped up weight classes and fought future hall of famers at multiple divisions. I take on all comers and don’t back out if my body isn’t feeling perfect. I can’t wait to whoop this dope! @danawhiteufc@lorenzofertitta please gimme a date. Lets get a staff of Drs on hand at Cruz’s training and ask his teammates to take it easy. I wanna be the one to break the glass champ!! #glasschamp”
Referring to Cruz as the glass champ is a dig at the champion’s notorious injury history, and although it’s nothing serious, Cruz is rehabbing a slight foot injury suffered in his UFC Fight Night 81 bout with TJ Dillashaw.
The champion shouldn’t be out too long, and the UFC is likely to book Cruz vs. Faber III in the near future.
The story lines were deep and abundant leading up to last weekend’s (January 17, 2016) highly anticipated bantamweight title fight between TJ Dillashaw and Dominick Cruz in the main event of UFC Fight Night 81. On one side, we had the long awaited return of Cruz, a man who had only competed once over the
The story lines were deep and abundant leading up to last weekend’s (January 17, 2016) highly anticipated bantamweight title fight between TJ Dillashaw and Dominick Cruz in the main event of UFC Fight Night 81.
On one side, we had the long awaited return of Cruz, a man who had only competed once over the last four years due to a plethora of injuries, and a man who had never technically lost his title.
On the other side, we had a defending champion in Dillashaw, who had recently left his longtime home at Team Alpha Male to head to Colorado, joining Team Elevation and Duane Ludwig.
In the end, it was Cruz who came out on top, reclaiming his title in a narrow split decision victory. With the dust now settled on the bout, questions have continued to arise on how much the change in gyms has impacted “Killashaw”.
“The Dominator” feels as if the former champion left a tremendous amount of loyalty behind in Sacramento at Team Alpha Male:
“I think that he did what he needed to do for himself in order to grow, but at the same time I think that he left a lot of loyalties behind. I mean it’s no question that Faber and that whole camp put a lot of money into him and to help and to try to create him into a champion, and when he became and achieved that championship with that camp, he took the title to another camp and gave them all the credit. Come on, you’ve got to have some sort of loyalty. You’ve got to have some sort of care of what they did for you to build you into that because they did build him into that.” Cruz said on a recent edition of Chael Sonnen’s Podcast.
Continuing on, Cruz reiterated the idea of loyalty, stating that Dillashaw isn’t training where he came from:
“One hundred percent you’ve got to remember where you came from, and one hundred percent, TJ did not come from where he is at right now.”
So what exactly is the difference between the two? According to Cruz, it’s that he stayed with what he knows best unlike the now former champion:
“I stayed with my roots. I stayed with what I knew, and the people that I knew were going to tell me the truth. That’s people that were not yes men, people who were not trying to benefit off of me coming to their gym. People who were not going to get a percentage of my win bonus. People who started when I grew up in the trailer and knew me from Arizona. People who had me when I would show up to fights with no management and no corner men, and believed that I could win then with no real skill set. Those are the people that I’ve stuck with my whole career. So even when you become great, they’re going to tell you what it is and who you are, and without those people around me, I’d probably be lost. But, they always keep me grounded, they always keep me driven, and I’m not surrounded by yes men feeding me a bunch of crap.”
(“And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-EEEEE-IIIIIIIIIII will always love youuuuuuuuuuuuu….” via Getty)
Not too long ago, we passed along a video of Conor McGregor and Urijah Faber’s dual interview on FS1, which was easily the greatest interview the channel had ever seen ever. Though the two TUF 22 coaches maintained the kind of playful repartee that has injected a much-needed sense of levity into this season’s show, McGregor held nothing back when the subject of Faber’s Team Alpha Male teammate, TJ Dillashaw.
“You shouldn’t be letting him in your sh*t, cause he’s a snake in the grass,” said McGregor. “You brought him into [The Ultimate Fighter] thinking he was there to help you. He was there to help him. He’s not your boy. I sense disloyalty.”
Not a week later, Faber lobbed a slew of accusations at former Alpha Male coach and the man behind Dillashaw’s success, Duane Ludwig, accusing him of everything from racism to attempting to extort TAM in an effort to solve his own financial woes. And now, it appears the bottom has finally dropped out.
(“And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-EEEEE-IIIIIIIIIII will always love youuuuuuuuuuuuu….” via Getty)
Not too long ago, we passed along a video of Conor McGregor and Urijah Faber’s dual interview on FS1, which was easily the greatest interview the channel had ever seen ever. Though the two TUF 22 coaches maintained the kind of playful repartee that has injected a much-needed sense of levity into this season’s show, McGregor held nothing back when the subject of Faber’s Team Alpha Male teammate, TJ Dillashaw.
“You shouldn’t be letting him in your sh*t, cause he’s a snake in the grass,” said McGregor. “You brought him into [The Ultimate Fighter] thinking he was there to help you. He was there to help him. He’s not your boy. I sense disloyalty.”
Not a week later, Faber lobbed a slew of accusations at former Alpha Male coach and the man behind Dillashaw’s success, Duane Ludwig, accusing him of everything from racism to attempting to extort TAM in an effort to solve his own financial woes. And now, it appears the bottom has finally dropped out.
In regards to my upcoming fight camp, I will be doing my training in Colorado. The last six years at Team Alpha Male have been irreplaceable and my brothers there will forever be family to me. I thank each and every one of them for helping me along the way and being a part of this journey we’ve shared. This is not the end of being a part of the Team Alpha Male family, but a new chapter in my career.
I will be spending my next full training camp with Team Elevation as they’ve offered me an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up, with an incredible coaching staff and state of the art facilities.
I want to thank everyone for the continued support as this has not been a decision I’ve taken lightly.
As it just so happens, that Godfather-esque opportunity Dillashaw mentioned happens to include a boatload of cash. The bantamweight champion talked to Stud Show Radio (audio below).
“I was going to go out there and train no matter what for this fight camp. I was going to go back and forth like I did last time. Except last time I paid a lot of money to do that. I had to rent a house while I was out there, I had to pay coaches while I was out there, I had to pay out a lot of money out there to do my fight camp, half at Alpha Male and half at Elevation Fight Team,” said TJ.
“Well now Elevation Fight Team came to me and they want to pay me good money to train with them.” he continued. “They’re offering to pay me to train instead of me paying to train. This sport is growing so much I feel that is the way it should be. Really if anyone else was in my situation they’d take the exact same deal.”
So once again, it appears that Conor McGregor has predicted deez tings. His reaction to yesterday’s news was about as subtle as you’d expect from the “Notorious” interim champ.
Well one thing’s for sure: *Every* night is red panty night at the McGregor household. The guy can’t stop talking about them — it’s as if he doesn’t even understand that black panties are objectively sexier according to every top scientist across the globe. COME ON, CONOR.
Anyways, this seems like an unnecessary (not to mention, slightly disloyal) move for Dillashaw, if you ask me, considering the fact that Cruz is going to shatter his tibia or some sh*t before this fight ever actually happens. But with Team Alpha Male currently without a coach, what other options does TJ Dilly have left?
