Boston, MA….Angels Camp’s TJ Dillashaw was on the losing end of a split decision scorecard in the UFC Bantamweight Title fight tonight. The now former UFC Champion seemed to inflict more damage to Cruz but Cruz took him on points. This fight begs for a rematch.
Dominick Cruz was a former champion that was battling back from injuries. It made for a better storyline for the former injured champ to regain his title but TJ Dillashaw said it was his mistake for letting the decision end up in the hands of the judges and not having the fight decided in the ring.
A sad night for TJ and his local fans but one gets the feeling this story has several more chapters to be written.
TJ Dillashaw Drops UFC Title Fight (Or Got Robbed In Decision) To Dominick Cruz added by admin on
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Close decisions should consider damage done. Good case either fighter won 3 rounds and lost 2, but TJ hurt Cruz. Cruz never wobbled TJ, and that plantar excuse was bogus. TJ landed a perfect leg kick and Cruz started limping and moving slowly. 6th round would easy to imagine.
So excited for the return of The Decisionater.
As someone who went into this fight just wanting to see a good fight (not caring in the slightest who won) I thought it was a complete joke TJ lost. There were stretches of minutes where cruz was just running away in every round, including the majority of the 5th round where he was hanging on for his life as TJ was lighting him up. Yeah Cruz had him on takedowns but he didn’t land a single shot on any of them and TJ was right back up. Can’t believe this is what the ufc wants Cruz made 0 attempt to be offensive and inflict damage other than some counters and TJ landed the 10 biggest shots of the fight. Calling it a “style” to run away from your opponent and occasionally throw a counter doesn’t make sense to me as it requires someone to push the pace. You’re telling me TJ couldn’t have easily ran from Cruz and given the fans the worst fight in UFC history? If you are not required to land any serious blows or be aggressive to take the champions belt we are going to start seeing marathon runners in the octagon. I would be shocked if the UFC didn’t take a look at the scoring guidelines it provides judges and make aggression more important.
All that said the comeback story is amazing and congratulations to Cruz.
Agreed. If Cruz fought Cruz there wouldn’t be a fight. How a fighter isn’t rewarded for constantly pushing the pace and knowingly putting himself in danger pursing the other is beyond me.
I first started thinking something was wrong listening to Joe Rogan commentating the fight (I love Joe, listen to his podcast occasionally and have seen most of his stand up and have listen to at least 200 fights he has called). For it being such a “close fight” the amount of platitudes Joe sent Cruz’s way were significantly more than what he said of TJ. It even seemed to me like his partner was even confused as he would bring up something positive TJ did and Joe would keep talking about Cruz. For example when Cruz took TJ down Joe said “TJ got up recklessly.” I understand his point, but I am used to Joe pointing out empty takedowns to his partner and discussing how meaningful it really is if no offense comes of it. Normally he would praise a fighter for being back on his feet without taking any damage. Another time that I remember thinking something was off was when TJ had Cruz against the fence and landed like 8 consecutive knees to the leg of Cruz that he had been damaging all fight. Joe did not mention the knees and instead called out the single counter Cruz threw. Lastly, I don’t remember Joe bringing up Cruz’s lack of offense or significant damage once when that seemed to be a huge part of the fight.
I don’t know, maybe this is all in my head but he praised Cruz like he praised TJ when he beat the pants of Barao (either time) and this fight was clearly nowhere near that domination.
I was rooting for Cruz but to be honest I felt that TJ clearly won rounds 1, 4 and 5…
We all know the fix was in. And they wonder why we pirate PPVs…
The judges who voted for Cruz do need to be scrutinized because they saw a different fight from the one that actually occurred.