CODY Garbrandt is laser focused on his fight at UFC 207 with bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, but it’s impossible to ignore the other marquee matchup at 135 pounds taking place the same night.
Former champion TJ Dillashaw will look to solidify his place as the No. 1 contender in the division when he takes on heavy handed striker John Lineker.
There’s a good chance the winner of Dillashaw vs. Lineker will then meet the winner of the UFC 207 co-main event between Garbrandt and Cruz. While his attention is only on Cruz for now, Garbrandt welcomes the challenge to face either of those bantamweight contenders next and he doesn’t see it being a tough challenge.
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READ NOW“Both those guys are easy fights for me,” Garbrandt told FOX Sports. “I take them both out 100-per cent. We’ll see how TJ fights. I want to lean more towards TJ but then again TJ doesn’t have a chin. I’ve seen that first hand and see that out here in training.
“Lineker throws like a dumb ass, throws wildly, really has no skill, just a club fighter like I’ve said before. He’s a club fighter.”
Garbrandt knows Dillashaw very well after the two of them trained together at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento and he was actually training to fight Lineker earlier this year before the Brazilian suffered an injury that forced a change to the matchup.
Ultimately, Garbrandt leans towards Dillashaw to get the win on Friday night, but there are still ways Lineker could catch him and get the finish.
“If TJ gets emotional and gets tagged and wants to stand there and brawl. TJ’s not a good brawler. He’s got no power. It takes until the fourth or fifth round to knock people out. If I’ve got to hit someone 20 or 25 times and they’re still standing, you better get me a (expletive) 2×4 cause I’m going to crack them with it,” Garbrandt said.
“I’ll probably lean towards TJ, maybe he uses his wrestling but then again TJ’s ground game’s not that good but neither is John. So it’s a toss up for me. I don’t see it being a too entertaining fight. With TJ in his last fight against Raphael Assuncao, he just held out, he fought to win, fought to get the ‘W’. When you’ve got Raphael Assuncao who’s out for two years, you take him out. Put him in front of me, I take him out.”
Earlier this year, Garbrandt laid out his plans for the bantamweight division in a “hit list” of opponents he wanted to face and defeat. The Ohio native already knocked off Takeya Mizugaki and now he’s onto the second name on his list this weekend with the fight against Cruz.
Both Dillashaw and Lineker occupied spots on that list as well although Garbrandt says if his former teammate is the fighter he’s supposed to face next, he’s got a demand before he’ll offer him a title shot.
It all stems from Dillashaw offering up $100,000 bet when he was trying to get a rematch with Cruz after falling to the current champion by split decision in January. Obviously, Dillashaw didn’t get the rematch at UFC 207 as he had hoped, but Garbrandt says he better have even more cash handy if he wants a fight with him after he’s champion.
“I said (my hit list) was Takeya (Mizugaki), Dom, TJ, Lineker so whoever after I dethrone Dom can get it. I’ll take on any comers. I do know if it’s TJ Dillashaw, he better ante up $200,000 (expletive) dollars to fight me,” Garbrandt said. “Not 100 G’s. He better give me $200,000 and then I might think about fighting him. Him and “Bang” (Ludwig) better be selling some more peanut butter out there in Colorado. I’ll tell you that much.
“They better start selling the peanut butter now.”