Dominick Cruz: Cody Garbrandt 'is nothing more than an attention whore'

Dominick Cruz has read all the headlines about his backstage altercation with Cody Garbrandt at UFC 202 and how light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier had to separate them before a fight broke out.

The real story behind that encounter is a little different according to Cruz, who was working for FOX that weekend as an analyst but says his chance meeting with Garbrandt was anything but random.

Cruz says the entire incident was staged by Garbandt because he knew people would be watching and that the story would get out that he nearly got into a backstage brawl with the UFC bantamweight champion.

"There are cameras around and he knows it. It's not hard to find me. That's what you've got to understand. All this 'we bumped into each other' stuff is not we bumped into each other. It's he goes and looks for me and finds me because he wants camera time," Cruz told FOX Sports. "This guy loves the limelight. He loves attention. Look at him, he's just begging for attention in everything he does. He wants attention, attention, attention.

"So he finds me because I'm the champion and I'm the guy who he wants to fight and I'm the guy that can get him the most attention in the division and he knows where I'm going to be at. Why? Because I'm doing my job. I'm working. I'm doing something he doesn't do. I'm doing more than just talk. I'm following through with action. I'm doing my job and it's easy to find me. All you've got to do is find where FOX is at. He goes and he looks for me and he goes and makes a bunch of loud noises and screams and yells and tries to look as tough as he can and that's how he's gotten in this position. Well I see right through that. He just wants attention. It's nothing more than that."

Cruz has no doubt that he's fighting Garbrandt at UFC 207 due in large part to the undefeated bantamweight contender trash talking him for months rather than going out and beating a legitimate opponent to earn the title shot.

For his part, Cruz says he probably wouldn't have even bothered paying attention to Garbrandt as an opponent until he actually cracked the top five in the division, but the Team Alpha Male fighter made so much noise that the UFC listened and gave him a shot at the championship in his sixth fight inside the Octagon.

"He wants to fight me because I'm the ticket to the most attention he can get. I'm the ticket to how he gets paid the best, according to the division obviously so that's what he wants," Cruz said.  "He's too immature and too dumb to understand that part of things. It's just him, him, him, 'I need attention, I need to look cool, I need to look tough' and that's the end of it.

"It's all a big facade. Really that's what it comes down to. He finds me and makes a bunch of loud noises around me and that's how he got put into this position. It's really common sense if you think about it. If you think about it, there's no reason for me to go looking for a guy that's No. 6 of the bantamweights. He talked himself into this. He asked for this ass whooping I'm going to give him and so that's what I'm going to do."

 

Cruz reveals that his beef with Garbrandt actually goes back even further to his last fight against Urijah Faber at UFC 199 this past June.

It was a big moment for Cruz to finally settle his near decade long rivalry with Faber while defending his bantamweight championship at the same time, but rather than offer congratulations or even allowing him to celebrate that night, Garbrandt was already making it all about him.

"I literally got done beating up Faber and was walking back to do my interviews with FOX, well it's pretty easy to find me back there obviously. You know I'm coming from the cage, you just run over to where I’m at and you just start talking, but he kind of made it all about him right away," Cruz revealed.

"He gave no respect. It was just 'hey I'm here, you better get my belt ready' and this and that. I get that he's trying to promote and I get that he's mad that I beat up his coach but it just shows how immature and how much he just needs to take a beating and how badly I need to beat him up. I literally got done with a fight and he was already trying to fight me again. It just showed what a wuss he is to me. It just showed how weak he is to me. I want to prove that. Right off the bat it got me watering at the mouth to put a beating on him because I think he's an idiot."

When it comes down to the actual matchup, Cruz feels like he's far better than Garbrandt in every facet of the fight and that will be exposed when they actually step into the cage together.

Certainly, Cruz knows that Garbrandt has fight ending power but that's not all that different from the fighter he took the bantamweight title from in the WEC back in 2010.

In fact, Cruz believes Garbrandt is really just a carbon copy of former WEC champion Brian Bowles, except for one thing — he may not be quite as good.

"What's the difference between Cody Garbrandt and the man who I took my WEC title from in 2010, Brian Bowles? What's the difference in style between those two gentlemen? Not much. I'll help you out. There's not much of a difference," Cruz said. "The only difference is Bowles might have a little bit better guillotine (choke) than Garbrandt.

"I know everything about this guy's game. I can dissect every single movement he does and why he does it and I understand it. He cannot do that with me. Again, that makes this a very tough style for him and he knows that. So the biggest thing he can do is scream and yell and look as scary and tough as he thinks he can for his fans so they can get behind him and he can get more attention put on him. Because Cody 'No Love' is nothing more than an attention whore."