Back in January, Dominick Cruz returned to the Octagon and defeated TJ Dillashaw to reclaim the UFC bantamweight championship. Immediately following his win over Dillashaw, Cruz found himself being called out by his nemesis, Urijah Faber.
The UFC ultimately opted to book Cruz vs. Faber III for UFC 199 on June 4th in Inglewood California. Ahead of that fight things have been tense between Cruz and Faber during media appearances. During an interview with MMAJunkie, Cruz put the bantamweight division on blast for its lack of depth.
“I mean, when I didn’t have the belt and I was out, who was talking about the 135-pound division?” Cruz said. “You couldn’t even name the top five in the division. And they kept doing rematches with Renan Barao, who got beat up by Dillashaw.
“They kept doing rematches because they had nothing else to sell, nothing else to go with.”
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Faber responded by pointing out that Cruz sat out for two years, which made the division suffer:
“He was out for two years, and he had one fight, and he was out for another two years,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to keep a division going when you have guys sitting out.
“I’ve had to fight multiple guys in the division he’s never even faced.”