Former UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw has been doing everything in his power to secure a rematch with UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.
Cruz, who returned to the Octagon earlier this year, fought Dillashaw in the main event of ‘UFC Fight Night: Boston’ back in January, and reclaimed the bantamweight championship that he never actually lost inside the Octagon as he picked up a split decision win over Dillashaw.
Since then, Cruz went on to defend his bantamweight championship by defeating Urijah Faber via unanimous decision in a dominant showing at UFC 199. Dillashaw on the other hand picked up a unanimous decision win over Raphael Assuncao on the preliminary card of UFC 200 back in July. With the win, Dillashaw believed that he had secured himself a rematch with Cruz, however all signs point to the UFC opting to book a bantamweight title fight between Cruz and Team Alpha Male prospect Cody Garbrandt instead.
In an effort to bait Cruz into a fight, Dillashaw offered the champ a $100,000 bet. However Cruz has yet to respond to the challenge.
During a recent interview with Fight Society, Dillashaw once again put the bantamweight champ on blast:
“He’s running as far and hard as he can and he’s doing a good job at it. He’s enticing these people that are into the drama and the reality TV of fighting rather than the actual sport,”
advertisement – continue reading below“He knows that I have the best chance of getting that belt and he doesn’t want to fight me. I know that’s the case because he came and congratulated me. As soon as the bell rang in the fifth round, he came and congratulated me and told me ‘hey man I just wanted to let you know that I am a martial artist and I do show respect, I was just hyping up the fight, congratulations, I didn’t do too bad for being out that long’. His coaches congratulated my coaches and they thought that I won the fight.”
“I’m thinking he’s trying to stay on top as long as he can,” Dillashaw said. “He’s already pushing for a second job in commentating, which he does a great job of, I do think he does a great job of commentating. He’s got a great knowledge base of the sport and he does his homework and I think he’s looking to his second career and he’s trying to stay on top until he does that and I think he knows that I’m going to steal it from him.”