{"id":489181,"date":"2026-02-19T02:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/489181\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T02:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:42:07","slug":"ex-ufc-champ-dominick-cruz-i-match-up-well-vs-merab-dvalishvili","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/489181\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-UFC champ Dominick Cruz: I match up well vs. Merab Dvalishvili"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dominick Cruz discussed what a matchup against fellow bantamweight great Merab Dvalishvili<\/a> would have looked like.<\/p>\n

Former WEC and UFC champion Cruz (24-4 MMA, 7-3 UFC) was widely considered the greatest bantamweight of all time until Dvalishvili (21-5 MMA, 14-3 UFC) entered the conversation. Dvalishvili tied the record for most UFC bantamweight title defenses at three, before losing his belt to Petr Yan at UFC 323<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Cruz was asked how he would have matched up against Dvalishvili’s relentless pace and grappling.<\/p>\n

“I always liked that fight,” Cruz said on the “Death Row MMA”<\/a> podcast. “I’m still a fan and stuff, and since I’m not fighting, it’s weird. I don’t want to sound like I’m talking trash or nothing, but I wanted to fight his style. I was trying to make that matchup coming up the ladder before I retired because I believe I match up really good with Merab, his style.<\/p>\n

“You stuff the takedowns, and everything about my style is built to beat the way he fights: Stuff the takedowns, hit angles, hit combinations, use cardio as a weapon, and just out-slick, out-maneuver, and out-smooth somebody. That’s what I like to do. He fights a lot like (Team) Alpha Male’s crew.”<\/p>\n

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Cruz’s career was riddled with injuries, but he managed to overcome adversity numerous times to become a two-time UFC bantamweight champion. He is credited for putting the lower weight classes on the map prior to the UFC introducing the 135-pound division. Cruz will be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame<\/a> later this year.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Prime Dominick Cruz liked his chances vs. Merab Dvalishvili<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dominick Cruz discussed what a matchup against fellow bantamweight great Merab Dvalishvili would have looked like. Former WEC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,73126,786,25363,785,85,787],"class_list":{"0":"post-489181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-dominick-cruz","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-merab-dvalishvili","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}