Can Big Money Buy the Next Superstar? Inside UFC’s $6 Million Gamble on Cody Garbrandt
According to T.J. Dillashaw, the UFC put big money into trying to make Cody Garbrandt the next Conor McGregor
While Garbrandt is a former bantamweight world champion — defeating Dominick Cruz to claim the title in 2016 — ‘No Love’ has never been able to replicate the success he had that night.
Garbrandt promptly lost the title to Dillashaw in his first defense and proceeded to lose five of his next six fights after stunning Cruz.
Garbrandt showed some flashes of his old self, earning back-to-back wins against Trevin Giles and Brian Kelleher, but he found his way back into the loss column at UFC 300 against former flyweight king Deiveson Figueiredo.
The UFC threw down Big Money on Cody Garbrandt
Recently, Dillashaw — a two-time opponent of Garbrandt — claimed that the UFC had gone all-in on promoting ‘No Love,’ believing he could become a star as big as ‘Mystic Mac.’
“[Garbrandt] had an amazing fight against Cruz…The UFC’s like, ‘Hey, this is our next big horse,” Dillashaw said on The Casuals MMA podcast. “Let’s put some money into him’. So they marketed the sh*t out of him, put him in a bunch of commercials, got some celebrities behind him. From what I was told, they put like $6 million into marketing him before our fight…So he went to massive stardom fast. They wanted him to be the next Conor McGregor” (h/t Sportskeeda).
Garbrandt was scheduled for a return to action on November 9 against Miles Johns, but an injury forced him to bow out of the bout. ‘No Love’ is 9-6 under the UFC banner, 14-6 overall.
