Tag: TJ Dillashaw vs Dominick Cruz

TJ Dillashaw Calls Out Urijah Faber: He Trapped Me On TUF

Former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw was recruited years ago by Team Alpha Male leader and longtime veteran Urijah “The California Kid” Faber. The two established a close bond, although one that was recently broken when Dillashaw elected to leave Team Alpha Male and head to Elevation Fight Team in Colorado. Ironically, featherweight champion Conor McGregor,

The post TJ Dillashaw Calls Out Urijah Faber: He Trapped Me On TUF appeared first on LowKick MMA.

Former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw was recruited years ago by Team Alpha Male leader and longtime veteran Urijah “The California Kid” Faber.

The two established a close bond, although one that was recently broken when Dillashaw elected to leave Team Alpha Male and head to Elevation Fight Team in Colorado.

Ironically, featherweight champion Conor McGregor, who coached opposite Faber on this past season of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), called Dillashaw a “snake in the grass” who was going to turn on Faber, causing drama when “Killashaw” appeared on the show.

The ex-bantamweight king now blames “The California Kid” for bringing him onto the set:

“I felt like him bringing me on to The Ultimate Fighter was a trap,” Dillashaw said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.

Dillashaw continued to blast Faber, saying that the former WEC champion only used the situation to garner more attention within the media:

“[It was] a way for him and Conor to bash on me for going to a different gym,” Dillashaw said. “[Faber] bashing me is a way to stay relevant, so the media had something to talk about other than his horrible fights.”

In the end, Dillashaw admits that he’s surprised by Faber’s actions, saying that cross-training is a normal thing in today’s day and age:

“This is very uncharacteristic of him,” Dillashaw said. “I’ve never seen him like this, especially to ruin a friendship over me liking a coach. Guys cross train all the time. That’s what Alpha Male’s known for, guys have open doors to come in all the time. They don’t call any of those guys traitors.”

Faber is set to battle reigning 135-pound champion Dominick Cruz in June, but will we ever see a potentially massive grudge match between he and Dillashaw?

The post TJ Dillashaw Calls Out Urijah Faber: He Trapped Me On TUF appeared first on LowKick MMA.

TJ Dillashaw: Dominick Cruz Wants To Run, Not Fight

Former UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw surrendered his title last month in the main event of UFC Fight Night 81, dropping a slightly controversial decision loss to Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz. Leading up to the bout, it seemed as if there was some tension between the two, and Dillashaw, who has openly expressed his interest

The post TJ Dillashaw: Dominick Cruz Wants To Run, Not Fight appeared first on LowKick MMA.

Former UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw surrendered his title last month in the main event of UFC Fight Night 81, dropping a slightly controversial decision loss to Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz.

Leading up to the bout, it seemed as if there was some tension between the two, and Dillashaw, who has openly expressed his interest in an immediate rematch, hasn’t given it up.

Cruz, a fighter who possesses world class movement and footwork, has been criticized in the past for being a boring fighter, and not being one to engage so to say. Dillashaw believes this to be true, and took to his official Instagram account earlier today to blast the champion for wanting to run rather than actually fight:

“Only equipment needed for the rematch against Cruz,” Dillashaw said on Friday. “Next training camp is going to be strictly running marathons and pillow fighting. Cause that little b–ch doesn’t want to fight he wants to run and throw his pillows around that he calls fists!”

Continuing on, the former kingpin made it clear that he wasn’t going to sit around and be nice and quiet anymore, but rather voice his opinions. At this point, Dillashaw essentially demanded a rematch, making it known that he wants his belt back:

“Give me the rematch to get back what is rightfully mine and should have never lost,” Dillashaw wrote. “No more being respectful or nice cause that doesn’t seem to get you s–t anymore.”

Check out the full post below:


While an immediate rematch between Cruz and Dillashaw could be a possibility within the contender scarce 135-pound division, all signs have pointed to the UFC booking a trilogy bout between “The Dominator” and No. 3-ranked Urijah “The California Kid” Faber.

Who would you rather see Cruz defend his title against next?

The post TJ Dillashaw: Dominick Cruz Wants To Run, Not Fight appeared first on LowKick MMA.

Dominick Cruz: Urijah Faber Has Been Gifted Title Shots His Whole Career

After reclaiming the title he had never technically lost at last month’s UFC Fight Night 81, reigning UFC bantamweight champion Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz appears to be headed for a trilogy bout with bitter rival Urijah Faber. This fight was originally set to take place at UFC 148 in 2012, but one of Cruz’s many

The post Dominick Cruz: Urijah Faber Has Been Gifted Title Shots His Whole Career appeared first on LowKick MMA.

After reclaiming the title he had never technically lost at last month’s UFC Fight Night 81, reigning UFC bantamweight champion Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz appears to be headed for a trilogy bout with bitter rival Urijah Faber.

This fight was originally set to take place at UFC 148 in 2012, but one of Cruz’s many injuries forced it to be scrapped. Now with “The Dominator” back at the helm and Faber ranked at No. 3, it seems like a perfect time to finally settle the score.

With Faber scoring a submission in the first meeting in 2007, and Cruz winning a decision in 2011, a rubber match is necessary, and the champion admits that he likes the idea of it.

“The California Kid”, although highly successful throughout his lengthy career, has come up short in all three of his UFC title shots, and Cruz feels as if he has been gifted shots at gold:

“I like that Faber matchup because we were supposed to fight but it got put off because of my knee injury, so I feel like that could happen,” Cruz told MMAjunkie. “It’s been 10 years of building with this guy, and I just kind of want to shut him down and keep him out of the division after this. He really isn’t the most relevant guy in the world, but he still does a pretty good fight. He brings some things to the table. He’s still got a championship mindset.

“I think this is just another gift for Faber. He’s been gifted his whole career with title shots, but oh well. Screw it. I’m all he’s got left, so I might as well give him one more.”

After having only competed once over the course of four years prior to his recent fight with TJ Dillashaw, Cruz worried the masses when he appeared to have injured his foot upon his return. “The Dominator” assured that the injury was not too serious, however, also saying that he’s been rehabbing it and will be back to normal soon:

“I wasn’t really banged up (after the fight), just my foot hurt,” Cruz said. “Of course it’s going to hurt worse at the end of the fight, especially because where we fought they didn’t let us tape stuff. If you go across the world in any sport anywhere, you can tape your ankles or your hands or your knees. Well in a fistfight, apparently you’re not allowed to, so it’s super silly. That really hurt my foot very badly because I was taping it the entire camp, so I was used to having that support. If you take away that support and have to fight at a thousand miles an hour, my foot gets hurt a little bit.

“I’m attacking it very aggressively in rehab, doing the things I need to do to get rid of the inflammation, and my body’s feeling strong. My knees are feeling strong. It’s just a matter of upkeep, staying strong, getting faster and rebuilding the body to get to top form because my last camp I came in off ACL injury and I had to skip a lot of portions of building my body because I had to focus on technique for the fight itself. … Now I can build all those things back up around all this time and have a full body going into this next fight.”

Although no date, location or official announcement has been reported just yet, Cruz seems to be on a beeline to a third bout with Faber, arguably the biggest fight that the division has to offer.

Who do you see coming out on top if and when these two clash?

The post Dominick Cruz: Urijah Faber Has Been Gifted Title Shots His Whole Career appeared first on LowKick MMA.

Dominick Cruz: Dillashaw Is Surrounded By A Bunch Of People Feeding Him Crap

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 post Dominick Cruz: Dillashaw Is Surrounded By A Bunch Of People Feeding Him Crap appeared first on LowKick MMA.

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.”

Do you agree with “The Dominator” here?

The post Dominick Cruz: Dillashaw Is Surrounded By A Bunch Of People Feeding Him Crap appeared first on LowKick MMA.

Doninick Cruz Winning Title Could Open Door For Renan Barao

With two losses to now former champion TJ Dillashaw and previous issues cutting weight, it appeared as if the future for former bantamweight title holder Renan Barao lied at featherweight. It was rumored that “The Baron’s” next bout would take place at 145-pounds, but the bantamweight division has changed quite drastically in the last week.

The post Doninick Cruz Winning Title Could Open Door For Renan Barao appeared first on LowKick MMA.

With two losses to now former champion TJ Dillashaw and previous issues cutting weight, it appeared as if the future for former bantamweight title holder Renan Barao lied at featherweight.

It was rumored that “The Baron’s” next bout would take place at 145-pounds, but the bantamweight division has changed quite drastically in the last week.

Dillashaw put his title on the line in the main event of last weekend’s (January 17, 2016) UFC Fight Night 81 against returning former divisional kingpin Dominick Cruz. After a back and forth battle it was “The Dominator” who walked away with the strap, adding life to a weight class he once ruled.

Not only did Cruz winning the title open up a ton of possibilities for the whole division, but it opened up an opportunity for Barao to secure yet another title shot.

Barao currently sits at No. 2 in the 135-pound rankings, and is only 1-2 in his last three appearances, scoring a submission victory over Mitch Gagnon, and dropping two stoppage losses to “Killashaw”.

Barao and Cruz were actually supposed to square off in 2014 when the Brazilian held the interim title, and “The Dominator” was stationed as the undisputed champion. However, another injury setback to Cruz forced the UFC to strip him of his title and promote Barao to the unified boss.

Now with “The Dominator” back at the helm, Barao’s longtime head coach Andre Pederneiras is hoping for another title shot, adding that Cruz coming out victorious was “great”:

“I can’t say the result wasn’t good for us. It was. The belt changing hands is great for us. If T.J. (Dillashaw) continued as champion, we wouldn’t have a third fight between T.J. and (Renan) Barao, so the result was really good for us. If you ask me if [another title shot is] what I want, of course it is. That’s what I want. But we have to wait and see how everything goes. It’s too soon to talk about it.” Pederneiras told MMAFighting.

Cruz likely has some business to handle with longtime rival Urijah Faber and possibly even a rematch with Dillashaw, but if Barao can get back to his winning ways, he could find himself challenging for UFC gold again soon.

The post Doninick Cruz Winning Title Could Open Door For Renan Barao appeared first on LowKick MMA.

Five Fights To Make For Resurgent Bantamweight Division

The dust has now settled on UFC Fight Night 81 which went down last Sunday (January 17, 2016) night from the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts presented live on FOX Sports 1. The main event featured a long awaited and highly anticipated bantamweight title fight between TJ Dillashaw and Dominick Cruz. In a very close

The post Five Fights To Make For Resurgent Bantamweight Division appeared first on LowKick MMA.

The dust has now settled on UFC Fight Night 81 which went down last Sunday (January 17, 2016) night from the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts presented live on FOX Sports 1.

The main event featured a long awaited and highly anticipated bantamweight title fight between TJ Dillashaw and Dominick Cruz. In a very close fought split-decision, “The Dominator” was able to reclaim the title he had never technically lost.

With Cruz now back at the helm, one of mixed martial arts’ (MMA) previously most lacking divisions has all of a sudden become resurgent with intriguing and exciting possibilities.

With the possibility of trilogy bouts, rematches, and the emergence of multiple rising contenders, let’s take a look at five potential fights for the new and improved 135-pound division:

The post Five Fights To Make For Resurgent Bantamweight Division appeared first on LowKick MMA.