Dominick Cruz: Dillashaw Is Surrounded By A Bunch Of People Feeding Him Crap
The story lines were deep and abundant leading up to last weekend’s (January 17, 2016) highly anticipated bantamweight title fight between TJ Dillashaw and Dominick Cruz in the main event of UFC Fight Night 81.
On one side, we had the long awaited return of Cruz, a man who had only competed once over the last four years due to a plethora of injuries, and a man who had never technically lost his title.
On the other side, we had a defending champion in Dillashaw, who had recently left his longtime home at Team Alpha Male to head to Colorado, joining Team Elevation and Duane Ludwig.
In the end, it was Cruz who came out on top, reclaiming his title in a narrow split decision victory. With the dust now settled on the bout, questions have continued to arise on how much the change in gyms has impacted “Killashaw”.
“The Dominator” feels as if the former champion left a tremendous amount of loyalty behind in Sacramento at Team Alpha Male:
“I think that he did what he needed to do for himself in order to grow, but at the same time I think that he left a lot of loyalties behind. I mean it’s no question that Faber and that whole camp put a lot of money into him and to help and to try to create him into a champion, and when he became and achieved that championship with that camp, he took the title to another camp and gave them all the credit. Come on, you’ve got to have some sort of loyalty. You’ve got to have some sort of care of what they did for you to build you into that because they did build him into that.” Cruz said on a recent edition of Chael Sonnen’s Podcast.
Continuing on, Cruz reiterated the idea of loyalty, stating that Dillashaw isn’t training where he came from:
“One hundred percent you’ve got to remember where you came from, and one hundred percent, TJ did not come from where he is at right now.”
So what exactly is the difference between the two? According to Cruz, it’s that he stayed with what he knows best unlike the now former champion:
“I stayed with my roots. I stayed with what I knew, and the people that I knew were going to tell me the truth. That’s people that were not yes men, people who were not trying to benefit off of me coming to their gym. People who were not going to get a percentage of my win bonus. People who started when I grew up in the trailer and knew me from Arizona. People who had me when I would show up to fights with no management and no corner men, and believed that I could win then with no real skill set. Those are the people that I’ve stuck with my whole career. So even when you become great, they’re going to tell you what it is and who you are, and without those people around me, I’d probably be lost. But, they always keep me grounded, they always keep me driven, and I’m not surrounded by yes men feeding me a bunch of crap.”
Do you agree with “The Dominator” here?
