Dominick Cruz didn’t appear too bothered with Jon Anik picking Merab Dvalishvili as the bantamweight GOAT over him.
The UFC’s play-by-play commentator declared UFC champion Dvalishvili as the greatest bantamweight of all time over his good friend and fellow broadcast partner. Cruz, a former two-time UFC champion and former WEC champion, is widely considered the greatest bantamweight of all time. But with Dvalishvili’s recent run, which includes numerous former champions, many are pondering if he’s done enough to surpass Cruz.
Cruz used a basketball reference when reacting to Anik dubbing Dvalishvili (19-4 MMA, 12-2 UFC) as the bantamweight GOAT.
“I think that Jon Anik knows – he makes media, he knows how to do that,” Cruz told MMA Junkie. “That’s my boy. I love that dude. The fact that there’s even a conversation with me involved, it’s not for me to decide something like that. I’m not saying it’s this level, but as a parallel you’re talking about Lebron (James) and (Michael) Jordan, right?
“You’re never going to convince me ever, ever, no matter what, under any circumstance that Lebron is better than Jordan. To me. But then you got the latter that’s going to say the opposite. I love that there’s even a conversation. If there’s a conversation, then that’s what this thing is about – and you know what? Merab is making it a conversation, too. Good for him.”
Cruz resonates with Dvalishvili’s long road to the top.
“This dude has run through the ladder,” Cruz continued. “This dude has had to fight up and down the ladder exactly the same way that I did. I had to fight my way through the hardest fights in the division, multiple rematches, before I got my shots. I had to earn every scrap, and I see that similarity in Merab’s fights. I tip my hat to him.”
Dvalishvili will look to notch his second title defense when he runs things back with Sean O’Malley (18-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 316 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) main event at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.
