Dominick Cruz fires back at Garbrandt: I will ‘kill’ your hype

UFC bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz responds to Cody Garbrandt, claiming that he ‘kills hype for a living’.

The next UFC bantamweight rivalry seems set between champion Dominick Cruz and knockout artist Cody Garbrandt.

‘The Dominator’ got into it with ‘No Love’s’ ex-teammate, T.J. Dillashaw at UFC Fight Night 81 and also has a heated past with Team Alpha Male owner Urijah Faber.

Garbrandt, who added another KO to his resume by starching Takeya Mizugaki in the first round at UFC 202, sounded off on Cruz on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.

“I heard in an interview that he gets hit 30-percent (of the time), he has a 30-percent chance of hitting me,” Garbrandt said. “Dude, you give me a one-percent chance of finding your chin, I’m knocking you the f*ck out. That’s plain and simple. I got a 90-perecent knockout rate. You want to talk about statistics? That’s what he talks about, stats. That’s numbers, buddy. He wants to talk about numbers because he’s a point fighter, and point fighters go off numbers and points. I’m a knockout artist and he’s going to be on the receiving end of a vicious knockout.”

Cruz was quick to respond by mocking the 25-year-old and promising to end his hype train.

“Let the youngster enjoy his hype train fresh off his win,” Cruz said, per MMA Fighting. “Let his people keep on building that false sense of confidence that they are all instilling into his psyche over this period, it’s good for him.

“I kill hype for a living.”

Cruz has established himself as the best bantamweight of all time, successfully reclaiming the title he was forced to vacate due to injury in 2014 and defending it against Urijah Faber at UFC 199. Including his championship fights in the Zuffa-owned WEC, Cruz has defend the belt 5 times and is currently the No. 2 ranked pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Garbrandt made his professional debut in 2012 and has looked unstoppable. The TAM product solidified himself as a serious contender in the 135-pound division when he knocked out Thomas Almeida in the opening round at UFC Fight Night 88.

Although nothing has been booked, it’s likely that Cruz will defend the the title against Garbrandt by the end of the year.