UFC
Dominick Cruz says current UFC Bantamweight Champion T.J. Dillashaw "nothing but a wannabe"
Jul 28, 2015 - 11:55:07 AM Dominick Cruz says current UFC Bantamweight Champion T.J. Dillashaw "nothing but a wannabe"

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

T.J. Dillashaw had a fantastic performance over Renan Barao on Saturday at UFC on Fox 16, retaining the UFC Bantamweight Championship in the process. However, there's at least one person who feels less than impressed with the current Champion: the man who never lost the belt, Dominick Cruz.

Cruz lambasted Dillashaw on Monday in an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, saying the current Champ has simply found success emulating his style, and is nothing more than a "wannabe."

"I see absolutely no similarities between my fighting style and T.J. Dillashaw's," Cruz said. "And the reason I say that is: we do different things. He's switching stances and I'm not. I'm doing something totally different that nobody understands. I don't know if you remember this, but you could watch my fights and listen to the commentary on my fights four years ago. When I was doing things, it was ‘awkward, herky jerky, never seen before.' It was just ‘weird.' I got this ‘weird style that doesn't make sense.' Four years have gone by. People can get a degree in four years, so the game has changed in the last four years. Now you're hearing the commentary about T.J. Dillashaw moving his feet, using feints and switching stances, and instead of being awkward, different, and weird, it's beautiful to everybody else.

"Now, my style is being appreciated. When I go out there, people will see T.J. Dillashaw is nothing but a wannabe, and I look forward to going out there and proving that I'm the best in the world... If you look at the wins that T.J. has had, he doesn't know if he's a champion yet. He has to fight me to believe it.

"He only beat Renan Barao. That's the only guy in the top-five he's beaten," he continued. "He lost to Assuncao - Assuncao was in the top-five when he lost to him. He lost to John Dodson when John Dodson was in the top-five. He's only beaten Renan Barao. He beat Joe Soto who's now, is he even in the UFC anymore? That's my point. He hasn't fought anybody to be a champion.

"T.J. Dillashaw still needs to fight somebody as good as me to even believe in himself. He has no clue what he's facing and he has no clue what it is to face a real champion, because he got given an opportunity from me being hurt. Renan was already an interim belt holder, and then he beat the interim belt holder to think he's champion. I don't think so. He's lucky I've been hurt."

Cruz also addressed Dillashaw's post-fight comments on Saturday, where the Champ said he hits harder than the former Champ. Cruz thinks it's just the latest comments from someone who won't be able to follow it up once he gets in the cage.

"What is T.J. Dillashaw saying? 'I hit harder, I'm going to knock him out, he thinks he's champion, he's not.' It's all the same stuff," Cruz said. "This guy doesn't even know what he's talking about. He learned the style that he won a championship with by watching me fight. He learned from me. Just like we see kids dunking the basketball with their tongue out, trying to be Michael Jordan, you see T.J. Dillashaw trying to switch stances, trying to look like Dominick Cruz. That's all there is to it. He needs me, to be who he is.

"The bottom line is, I make his career worth anything. I'm the only fight he needs to be worth anything. So he should be thanking me for being out as long as I have, because it's given him the chance to have a spotlight. Otherwise he'd just still be the least of alphas at Team Alpha Fail."

Penick's Analysis: There's even more from Cruz on the whole situation in the full interview, so check out this week's MMA Hour to hear it all. These are some shots fired out by the former Champion, and there's going to be money in this fight whenever it can happen. Cruz says he's shooting for the New Year's card, which will kick off 2016 from Las Vegas on January 3, and this would be a fantastic fight for that event. Cruz isn't necessarily wrong in some of his thoughts, but I think he's intentionally undervaluing what Dillashaw has done against Barao in both fights. Obviously Dillashaw needs to start beating some of the better fighters in the division as well, and needs to avenge the loss to Raphael Assuncao at some point, but he's looking incredible twice against Barao. His style is similar but different to Cruz, and though Cruz thinks it's different in his favor, there are some things Dillashaw was doing on Saturday night that are an improvement on the type of thing Cruz has been great at in the past. If he gets healthy and fights Dillashaw in January, he'll have his chance to prove himself right, and that's a fight that just has to happen as soon as possible. I'm more intrigued by that matchup than almost any other the UFC could make right now.