Cody Garbrandt (L) knocked out Takeya Mizugaki (R) in their encounter in UFC 205. (Photo : Getty Images/Steve Marcus)
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has definitely experienced a lot of growth this past year with some big names fighting at their 2016 pay-per-view events. However, the UFC must be saving the best for last, as the final UFC event of the year may already have a storyline that could trump any rivalry or publicity stunt in the past year.
On the 30th of December, undefeated phenom Cody Garbrandt (10-0 in his career, 5-0 in the UFC) will face Dominick Cruz (22-1 in his career, 5-0 in the UFC) for the latter's 135-pound, bantamweight belt he won against TJ Dillashaw earlier this year. The challenger Garbrandt believes that after this fight, he will finally be able to fulfill his long-awaited destiny by knocking out an "Insecure champion," as stated in a report by MMA Junkie.
Close to 7 years ago, as an 18-year old, Garbrandt witnessed Cruz win the World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) Bantamweight Championship in a dominant performance against Brian Bowles. After defending his belt multiple times, the UFC eventually merged with the WEC, granting Cruz the inaugural UFC bantamweight championship in the process. However, he was stripped of this title after recurring injuries before reclaiming it in January this year.
Garbrandt is currently ranked #5 in the UFC's official bantamweight rankings. He has one all of his 10 fights, winning by knockout 9 times along the way. His most recent victory came last August against Japanese veteran Takeya Mizugaki who he knocked out just 48 seconds into the first round of their matchup.
Now, just over 4 months later, he is challenging for the title marking his 4th fight in a calendar year, a feat in and of itself. While his skills in the Octagon can do the talking, Garbrandt is still hyping the fight with controversial interviews, a trend that became big in 2016 with the likes of Connor McGregor. For this, Cruz had some words about his opponent's "spineless, gutless" approach to interviews.
"It's like when you are a little kid and you literally repeat what the other person just said," the champion told FloCombat. "At a certain point, I thought he was making us both look dumb because he was so bad at speaking. I would say something and he would just start yelling loud noises at me because he didn't want me to get my thought out."
This fight is definitely shaping up to be one of the best of 2016.
