In a recent interview with TMZ, former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz stated that he wants to fight one last time before calling time on his career. Following a four-year break in activity, Cruz returned to the Octagon at UFC 249 in 2020 where he challenged Henry Cejudo for the 135-pound title.
Since then, he has fought three more times, earning wins over Casey Kenney and Pedro Munhoz before being stopped by Marlon Vera in August of 2022. “I’ll tell you, I think I got a last dance, I want one last dance in me,” Cruz told TMZ. “Just go out there and have fun, and when I say fun, I mean fight to the bitter death and see what I have in me.”
His fellow UFC commentator, Jon Anik, posting on X to suggest that a rematch with Cejudo four years down the line from their first meeting would be of interest. The post received a response from the often vocal Ali Abdelaziz who is Cejudo’s manager at Dominance MMA.
When Cruz replied to Abdelaziz calling this fight “easy money” for his fighter, the two men went back-and-forth in a series of posts.
Cruz continued to hit back at Abdelaziz and criticized him for trash talking other fighters when he doesn’t have to face any repurcusions because he still gets paid whether or not the clients that he manages win or lose.
“It’s easy money for you-as you get a percentage paid by your fighter no matter what, while you chat sh** that you personally cannot back up. You have no skin in the game, that’s what makes you weak.”
The argument continued with Cejudo also catching a few strays from Cruz who said that fighting him would be like “killing you two birds with one stone”.
“Look at your big tough guy words on X .You’re now talking about paying someone the % of money that you usually would steal from him, just to fight me for you, solely because you yourself can’t cash the checks you write with your big mouth. That’s exactly my point-that’s why you are a weakling. Henry is about as tiny a man in stature as you are mentally. You two deserve each other. Killing you two birds with one stone sounds like a lovely day of humanitarian work.”
As is often the case, Abdelaziz continued to reply until he had the last word, seemingly welcoming Cruz to do something about it physically the next time that they see each other in person.
