On fight week, you hear a lot of bold talk from fighters toward their opponents.
Leading up to UFC 202, Cody Garbrandt may be going above and beyond the call of duty with the boldness. And apparently, he doesn't care who overhears.
Garbrandt takes on well-traveled UFC veteran Takeya Mizugaki in Saturday's undercard headliner. And you know what? He'd like to make a little prediction.
"I'm going to knock him out in the first round," Garbrandt told Bleacher Report in an exclusive interview. "The first exchange. The first head shot."
It's Tuesday afternoon and Garbrandt is doing a phone interview in a Las Vegas hotel lobby, checking in to his lodgings for the stay. But as it turned out, Garbrandt wasn't alone.
Someone was listening to him make his prediction for Saturday. You know, the one about the knockout after the first head shot.
"He's actually right here," Garbrandt said, meaning, of course, Mizugaki. "He's looking at me right now, like a few feet away from me right now."
Um...can he hear you?
"Oh, yeah, he understands," Garbrandt said, after a pause. "Yeah, he can hear me. Look, he's smiling now."
Garbrandt is dishing out a lot of disrespect this week. Doing it in a hotel lobby was just the latest chapter. He first did it at a Monday media event, where he waxed poetic on his ability and willingness to face and ferociously knock out bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz—"he loses everything" in that fight, Garbrandt proclaims—after he's done with Mizugaki. He then unveiled his own personal "hit list" of Cruz, former Team Alpha Male teammate T.J. Dillashaw and headhunter extraordinaire John Lineker. In that order.
As far as Cruz is concerned, yes, he's the champ, and assuming a Garbrandt win at UFC 202 (he's a heavy -550 favorite to do so, according to betting site OddsShark.com), this title fight would be a big deal. Maybe the pay-per-view-main-event kind of big deal, which would come with a big paycheck kind of deal.
But this is about more than a glitzy way of keeping up his pants. Cruz (22-1) has a habit of irritating, even angering his opponents, then beating, even embarrassing them a little later.
More than one of those opponents came from Garbrandt's training home at Team Alpha Male, the famous Sacramento gym headed by Urijah Faber (who lost to Cruz twice) and previously frequented by former champ Dillashaw (who lost to Cruz once, relinquishing his title) and another elite in Joseph Benavidez (who lost to Cruz twice).
There's also the fact that Cruz started all of this, naming Garbrandt in August during a conversation about who he might want to fight next. Cruz told MMAjunkie Radio on August 8 (h/t Mike Bohn of MMAjunkie):
I like Garbrandt [as an opponent] because one, he’s Team Alpha Fail, and two, he runs his mouth, he’s an emotional guy, he’s got a goofy part in his hair and a ton of tattoos so he thinks he’s tough. All of those things together make for an interesting fight. The fans get behind Cody. I’ve gotten a lot of tweets about him, he’s got a lot of fans because he’s been riding the coattails of Urijah Faber for a while now.
Attach revenge, then, to Garbrandt's list of possible Cruz incentives. That, along with money and a title, is a pretty good trio. Garbrandt worked to debunk Cruz's comments, particularly the part about being "emotional," which apparently in fighter parlance means something bad.
"It's something I've visualized since I was teenager, fighting Cruz, but he's never really faced a sound physical and emotional fighter like myself," Garbrandt said. "The other opponents have been weak. I'm emotional but I fight with passion. ...[Dillashaw] is an emotional dude. A lot of fighters, Cruz got under their skin. The guy's a dork and he tries to be a bully."
Garbrandt is pretty confident—that's not too shaky of a limb to go out on. As a fighter, he has earned that right. He's 25 years old and 9-0 as a pro. That includes 4-for-4 in UFC bouts and eight knockouts, including a flattening of even-hotter-at-the-time prospect Thomas Almeida in the main event of UFC Fight Night 88 back in May. (Garbrandt, who called that the biggest win of his career, also grabbed his first career $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus.)
That curtain-closing ability comes from more than power. An accomplished amateur boxer in his native Ohio, he has solid footwork, hand speed and takedown defense. He blends it all inside a barely controlled aggression, which sees him darting forward to slam his fist against his opponent's skull.
But back to Mizugaki for a second. Perhaps you forgot that Mizugaki (21-9-2) is the name of the man Garbrandt fights on Saturday. He's a man with an 8-4 UFC record and a reputation for toughness.
Is Garbrandt looking past him?
"Not at all," he responded. "I don't put things to the side. I'll address that problem as it comes. He's a man who's standing in the way. From the opening bell to the end bell, I'm gonna be swinging."
Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. For more, follow Scott on Twitter. All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
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