Few fighters get the opportunity to move down in weight and challenge the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, so it’s hard to blame UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw for trying to drop to 125 pounds to fight flyweight king Demetrious Johnson.
The potential superfight is already in the works for this summer, while UFC president Dana White gave his stamp of approval after Dillashaw knocked out Cody Garbrandt at UFC 217 to claim the 135-pound belt.
If Dillashaw temporarily leaves the UFC bantamweight division behind in favor of chasing an elusive “Mighty Mouse,” his divisional absence will be sure to piss off some deserving title contenders. Just ask former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, who believes Dillashaw is being “silly” for moving down in weight and not handling his business at 135 pounds.
“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” said Cruz during a recent appearance on MaxOut with Ed Mylett. “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.”
Cruz, who was scheduled to fight Jimmie Rivera at UFC 219 before breaking his arm, lost his last Octagon appearance at UFC 207 when he relinquished his bantamweight crown to “No Love” via unanimous decision. Still, “The Dominator” remains the greatest bantamweight in UFC history and arguably deserves another crack to win his title back, especially considering he defeated Dillashaw for the championship back in 2016.
“That’s the fight that matters,” Cruz said of a potential rematch with Dillashaw. “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.”
Despite his own beliefs, Cruz is unlikely to sway Dillashaw in a direction that doesn’t involve a chance to end Johnson’s historic title reign at 125 pounds. Dillashaw has already declined a rematch with Garbrandt at UFC 222 and remains optimistic that a superfight with “Mighty Mouse” will happen this year.
“I’m sad for him” Cruz said. “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.”
Whether or not Dillashaw signs the dotted line to fight Johnson in 2018, Cruz may very well have to win a fight before getting his third shot at UFC gold. Until that happens, all eyes will be on Dillashaw and Johnson heading into the summer.