Apparently, Dominick Cruz isn't done with Team Alpha Male just yet. At least not if Team Alpha Male has anything to do with it.
On June 4, Cruz defended his UFC Bantamweight Championship against Alpha Male founder Urijah Faber with a unanimous-decision win. It was the third contest between the two, and it swung the trilogy in Cruz's favor.
Before that, his previous win came in January, and it netted him the belt he had never lost in the cage (extended injury layoffs spurred the UFC to force Cruz to vacate the title). That win came over T.J. Dillashaw, who made his bones at Team Alpha Male and is associated with the camp but had recently departed for new pastures amid controversy.
If that wasn't enough of a history with this lighter-weight fighter stable, back in the days of the defunct World Extreme Cagefighting promotion, Cruz beat Alpha Male mainstay Joseph Benavidez twice.
But it's not over yet. Cody Garbrandt saw to that.
Garbrandt might be the most promising fighter on the Alpha Male roster, and he took a big step up the bantamweight ladder when he melted fellow prospect Thomas Almeida with a crushing right hook in the main event of UFC Fight Night 88 on May 29.
After Cruz defeated Faber, he and Garbrandt had a tense exchange backstage, and it might have signaled that a new rivalry between Team Alpha Male and the acid-tongued champ is beginning to heat up.
"Yeah, [Cruz appeared] with this dumbass look on his face," Garbrandt explained June 8 on Team Alpha Male's proprietary Stud Radio program, per a Saturday report from MMAFighting.com. "I was sitting there, walked out of Faber's tent, talked to him, kind of taking it all in. He popped out of his tent and kind of made eye contact with me, made this face like, 'Yeah, motherf--ker, what?'"
Garbrandt didn't like that much.
"He wouldn't turn away, so I was like 'all right, what's up? It's cool. Keep my belt polished up for me,'" Garbrandt said. "And he grabbed his belt off his dude and put it over his shoulder like, 'You better get in line.' I was like, 'There ain't no line right now. I'll run up on you and smack you right in your face.'"
Cruz then started talking smack about Garbrandt's tattoos, of which there are many. And Garbrandt was going to go up and throw hands with him, but Cruz's buzzkill bodyguards or whomever got in the way and cut him off. Bummer.
Only a matter of time!! @DominickCruz @ufc https://t.co/Cs3LstZfil
— Cody Garbrandt (@Cody_Nolove) June 7, 2016
"I'll just run up and smack you," Garbrandt said. "F--k the line. Wait in line? I'll jump the line.' Then his cornermen were right there, like, 'Get the f--k out of here,' and I was like, 'f--k this, Dude.' He wants to look at me, grab his belt and turn toward me, yeah, keep it polished for me, because I'm coming, motherf--ker."
Neither man has been scheduled for his next fight as of now. But, as impressive as he's been in his short UFC tenure, the 24-year-old Garbrandt (9-0) may have to fight a time or two more before earning a title shot against Cruz (22-1).
Although injuries kept the 31-year-old champ on the shelf for the better part of five years, no opponent in the cage has gotten the better of him since Faber did it back in 2007. Cruz hasn't lost in five UFC contests.
