Dominick Cruz isn’t particularly interested in fighting Sean O’Malley.
After O’Malley returned to the win column with an emphatic third-round knockout over Thomas Almeida this past weekend, Chael Sonnen revealed he received a text from Cruz stating his interest to fight “Sugar” next.
O’Malley would reciprocate that interest by calling for a fight with Cruz to be the co-main event of UFC 264 which is set to be headlined by a trilogy between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor.
That’s all well and good — until you realize Cruz never texted Sonnen that in the first place.
Speaking to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani (via Middle Easy), Cruz revealed he didn’t even text Sonnen at all and had no reason to call anyone other than the champion out given his status as a former champion and arguably the greatest bantamweight of all time.
That said, Cruz is not opposed to a fight with O’Malley.
“Am I interested in a fighting again? Yes,” Cruz said. “Do I need to call out one specific person? No. Am I saying no to one specific person? No.
“I could also see how that would be a matchup that people are talking about. You know, he feints a lot. He uses his range. He’s tall, he’s long, I’m tall. I’m long. I use feints, we have a lot of similarities. He’s an up and coming athlete, I’m sure he’s watched a ton of my fights and saw how successful I am. I see that he uses a lot of stuff, so no, I’m not opposed to it.”
There’s also talk of a fight with Jose Aldo, but as far as Cruz is concerned, he’s open to any matchup in the top 10 as he feels it’s guaranteed to be amazing to watch.
“Look at all the match-ups.” Cruz said. “I’m a fun fight to watch and I’m a tough matchup for anybody in the division. Everybody knows that. So you can match me up with anybody in the top 10 and it’ll be amazing to watch. That’s why there’s no specific reason to call out one person because I’ve got my hands full with anybody in the top 10.
“That’s a fact, anybody in the top 10, I have my hands full. They’re all world title holders. Casey Kenney was a multiple time world champion in [LFA]. So, all of these guys in the top 12, top 15, are world title holders in other organizations. Maybe not in the UFC, but they’re still champions. So I got my hands full with everybody there and whoever I get lined up with, I’m gonna definitely have to put in my work like I’m doing right now.”
Cruz is coming off a split decision win over Kenney at UFC 259 earlier this month.
