Dominick Cruz calls for fight against higher-ranked opponent, open to rematching Henry Cejudo
After fighting twice in 2021, Dominick Cruz is riding a two-fight winning streak and looking for his first fight of the 2022 calendar year. With back-to-back wins over Casey Kenney and Pedro Munhoz last year, Cruz, the former UFC bantamweight champion, is looking for a jump-up in competition and has his eyes set on higher-ranked contenders.
Currently sitting at 8th in the bantamweight division rankings, there are plenty of options for Dominick Cruz to choose from, but with many of the contenders ranked above him currently without a fight, it’ll be interesting to see who wants to face the former champion. If there are no high-ranking opponents willing to fight him, Cruz told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani that he would be open to a rematch against former bantamweight and flyweight champion, Henry Cejudo.
In his interview on ‘The MMA Hour‘ Cruz discussed why he wants a higher-ranked opponent for his next fight and has some potential names lined up.
.@DominickCruz tells @arielhelwani he wants an opponent ranked above him, but is also willing to rematch Henry Cejudo and "smash him around the cage" 👀 #TheMMAHour
▶️ https://t.co/xpZbAgmnl0 pic.twitter.com/sjqSanysx2
— MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) May 25, 2022
“I’d love to fight like a [Petr] Yan right now, Yan’s a former champ, he’s nasty, he’s one of the best. Like I said, [Jose] Aldo, [Merab] Dvalishvili, just somebody above me, man. It’s not like I’m asking some weird thing, I just want somebody to just keep moving up and facing the best guys in the division. [TJ] Dillashaw, Aljo [Sterling]. “
After naming some of the top-ranked bantamweights ahead of him in the division, Dominick Cruz then took aim at Henry Cejudo who is reportedly working his way back into active competition and has re-entered the the USADA testing pool. Cejudo initially retired from active competition after defeating Cruz at UFC 249, and becoming the UFC’s fourth ever two-weight champion after Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, and Amanda Nunes.
“There’s a lot of people talking that aren’t even in the division, they’re not even in the testing pool, when some of those people come back, if they actually make it through the testing pool rematches can happen for me. There’s a lot of opportunities here. Henry’s the one right now that I’d love to rematch with because of the way the last fight went. Now he gets to comeback and just jump right in, maybe they’ll give me him to welcome him back to the division and I can just smash him around the cage and that’ll be great.”
Whenever Dominick Cruz does decide to return, he has plenty of options in mind for his next opponent, and he’s also ready for revenge if the opportunity presents itself.
