No Love

To be perfectly honest Cody Garbrandt is probably one of the most naturally skilled talents in UFC history, his performances against Dominick Cruz and Thomas Almeida leave little to the imagination. With a solid wrestling background, terrifying hand speed matched with punching power it made him an absolute force in the Bantamweight division. To call his performance against Dominick Cruz as anything but a masterclass performance, probably one of the greatest performances in MMA history, considering he dropped Cruz numerous times, taunted him and controlled the entire fight whilst entering as a +212 underdog.

What makes one ponder about the career of Cody Garbrandt is the fact that he fought so perfectly in his contender fights and his championship fight to win the belt but since then he has abandoned his traditional style of fighting for an aggressive brawling style, this pugnacious approach has not done any favours for him as it has literally cost him fights he has been winning against Pedro Munhoz and TJ Dillashaw (2x).  However in the fight, he lost his title and the rematch it is highly likely that USADA failed to do their job and catch TJ Dillashaw when he was abusing Performance Enhancing Drugs, which adds to the concern of Cody taking (T)KO losses against a known drug cheat.

This is an unforgiven sport so there can only be hope that Garbrandt makes the adjustments necessary in his career to fighting more defensively and not get drawn into all-out brawls that might cost him consciousness. Fans cheer and he might earn a $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus, but it really is not worth it. At the end of the day, we don’t see the painful ordeals that his family will see or the negative effects these concussions have on him, they will affect him in his later years, one can only hope that he makes the adjustments to protect his chin and not fight as recklessly as he has done in the past.

This is The Hurt Business