While the world awaits the word on UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw’s next move, a third man wants to be considered for the champ’s return to action.
Dillashaw is eyeing a super-fight against Demetrious Johnson, and former champion Cody Garbrandt is looking to spoil those plans and inject himself in a rematch.
UFC president Dana White recently sounded more optimistic that the Garbrandt fight will happen, and not the super-fight with Johnson. And now Dominick Cruz wants in the picture.
Cruz already beat Dillashaw in a UFC title fight, and he thinks that storyline is what’s going to sell best, as he rips the champ for wanting to drop down.
In a new interview with MaxOut with Ed Mylett, Cruz explained:
“I think [the championship] should be my next fight, but they play weird games where they want to give T.J. Dillashaw an easier fight because he doesn’t want to fight somebody hard right after he won the title. He wants an easy fight. So he wants to fight somebody that he knows he can keep the belt a little longer before he knows he gets a really hard fight, whereas I went T.J. Dillashaw, Urijah Faber, Cody Garbrandt and then I lose the belt.
“Let’s go T.J.! I beat you. Don’t you want to get that back? Stop going down and looking for little baby boys at 125. Silly Dilly, that’s what I call him.”
“That’s the fight that matters. Everybody wants to see if he can beat me and everybody knows I can beat him. Why wouldn’t we see that again? I just don’t understand why it would go any other way. . .
“It’s silly to me, the game. If I lost to somebody and I was the champion, I’d want that fight right away. Yes, [I did that with Faber]. I had to get it back and I want to get my loss back from Cody too but he lost so I want the guy that’s the champion.”
“I’m sad for him. He’s not challenging himself. He doesn’t get, doesn’t see the big picture. There’s only a few people that generate interest in this division and I’m one of them. There’s no Ifs, Ands, or Buts about it, so where are you going? That’s the fight people want to see. There’s only certain fight that create interest in this thing and he’s running all over the place, anywhere but where the interest is and it blows my mind. It blows my mind because how do you sell pay-per-views, how do you get people to tune in if you’re dodging the people that generate the most of that just because you want safety.”
“I get the belt back by beating T.J. and then I give Cody a shot again because that’s what it is. That’s the way it should be because I lost to Cody so let’s see if I made the adjustments.”
