Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight king Dominick Cruz, who retired this year, has launched a brand new podcast, and his very first guest couldn’t have been
a more fitting choice — longtime rival and former WEC Featherweight champion, Urijah Faber.
Cruz and Faber’s rivalry is one of the most iconic and bad-blooded feuds in lighter weight MMA history. The two first met back in 2007 under the WEC banner, when Faber was the Featherweight champion and Cruz was just 9-0. Faber handed Cruz his first professional loss that night, submitting him with a guillotine choke in the first round.
The animosity between the two only grew from there. When Cruz dropped down to Bantamweight and became UFC champion in 2010 (because of the WEC merger), Faber followed him to the division — and the two finally met again in a heated rematch at UFC 132 in 2011. This time, Cruz got his revenge, defeating Faber via unanimous decision in what was the first Bantamweight title fight in UFC history.
Their trilogy bout came five years later at UFC 199 in 2016, with Cruz once again getting the better of “The California Kid,” winning a clear decision (watch highlights) to close the book on their decade-long rivalry. The two would later bury the hatchet publicly, but the competitive fire between them never really went away.
Now, nearly two decades after their first clash, Cruz and Faber are sitting down — not to fight, but to talk. And for longtime fans of the sport, seeing those two share microphones instead of punches is as surreal as it gets.
Watch the entire podcast above!
