{"id":191726,"date":"2016-04-14T10:19:36","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T17:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=191726"},"modified":"2016-04-14T10:19:36","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T17:19:36","slug":"dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/","title":{"rendered":"Dominick Cruz blasts bantamweight division"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in January, Dominick Cruz returned to the Octagon and <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mmanews\/video-highlights-tj-dillashaw-vs-dominick-cruz-ufc-fight-night\/\">defeated TJ Dillashaw<\/a> to reclaim the UFC bantamweight championship.  Immediately following his win over Dillashaw, Cruz found himself being <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mmanews\/watch-faber-calls-out-newly-crowned-champion-dominick-cruz\/\">called out by his nemesis<\/a>, Urijah Faber.<\/p>\n<p>The UFC ultimately opted to book <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/videos\/video-dominick-cruz-vs-urijah-faber-iii-staredown\/\">Cruz vs. Faber III<\/a> 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 <a href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.com\/2016\/04\/ufc-champ-cruz-ahead-of-faber-fight-no-one-cared-about-division-while-i-was-gone\" target=\"_blank\">MMAJunkie<\/a>, Cruz put the bantamweight division on blast for its lack of depth.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cI mean, when I didn\u2019t have the belt and I was out, who was talking about the 135-pound division?\u201d Cruz said. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t even name the top five in the division. And they kept doing rematches with Renan Barao, who got beat up by Dillashaw.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey kept doing rematches because they had nothing else to sell, nothing else to go with.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Faber responded by pointing out that Cruz sat out for two years, which made the division suffer:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cHe was out for two years, and he had one fight, and he was out for another two years,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to keep a division going when you have guys sitting out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve had to fight multiple guys in the division he\u2019s never even faced.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":182967,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10131],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dominick Cruz blasts bantamweight division | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dominick Cruz blasts bantamweight division | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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. [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"| BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bjpenn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-14T17:19:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Dominick-Cruz.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"730\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"380\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"bjpenndotcom\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#\/schema\/person\/7c8b8d1602cb47040b7a5cd250d5b90a\"},\"headline\":\"Dominick Cruz blasts bantamweight division\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-14T17:19:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-14T17:19:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/\"},\"wordCount\":223,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Dominick Cruz\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2016\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/\",\"name\":\"Dominick Cruz blasts bantamweight division | BJPenn.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-14T17:19:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-14T17:19:36+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/dominick-cruz-blasts-bantamweight-division\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"MMA News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Dominick Cruz\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/dominick-cruz\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"Dominick Cruz blasts bantamweight division\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\",\"name\":\"| BJPenn.com\",\"description\":\"MMA &amp; 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