Dominick Cruz is not shy about speaking his mind.
The former UFC Bantamweight Champion sat down on Demetrious Johnson’s MightyCast and claims the rankings have more to do with the fighter’s pay, not their in-cage performance.
“My experience, the way the rankings are made are according to how you wrote your contract last,” Cruz said. “So if I wrote a big contract to fight you and I renegotiate at fight No. 4 and then they ask me for a favor to fight you on one week’s notice for a title, I have an opportunity to renegotiate my contract and I can probably get a good chunk. So let’s say I negotiate really well and I get up to more money than anybody in the division and then I lose to you. I’m still making that money.
Now that they’re paying me, you’re telling me, I just lost, they’re going to give me No. 10 now?” Cruz continued. “But I’m making money to fight for a title. They’re not going to pay me title money [for that], never. You see what I mean? So that’s the true ranking is how much your contract is written for.”
Cruz explained the situation even further. He stated that even if he was on a skid, the matchmakers are still going to give him a top level name because it’s all about the money at the end of the day.
“Even if I lost the title, even if I lost two in a row, they’re still giving me top 5 because I’m getting paid so much they want to see me get beat to death for that money.”
After some back and forth dialogue between Cruz and Johnson about whether UFC should still be considered a sport, Cruz feels that fighters need to come to realize what the rankings truly are.
“Once a fighter can surrender to the fact that rankings aren’t based off your skill, it’s based off of who wants to watch you, then you’re ranked. … I think that still makes it a sport, it’s just wrapped in a different package and we’re all OK with it or we’re not,” Cruz said. “I still signed up. I’m still here. I’m still going to do it. I’m still going to sign.”
White has not responded to Cruz’s claims. Of course, this a case of he said/she said since Cruz doesn’t back up his words with a pure evidence, though it wouldn’t be surprising if what he said was true.