Who Does UFC Have Less Faith In: TJ Dillashaw or Dominic Cruz?

Hey, guess what, fans of not wanting to see UFC Bantamweight Champion TJ Dillashaw fight Renan Barao again because we’d like for Renan to still have the ability to eat solid food after he’s retired?

TJ Dillashaw actually has someone to defend his title against! And it’s the fight we really wanted to see all along! Or at least since TJ won the belt! And mainly because Conor McGregor won’t drop down to 135!

That’s right. UFC announced on Wednesday that Dillashaw will return to defend his title on January 17 against the man who never lost the belt, Dominic Cruz.

It’s a fight that’s a year and a half in the making, ever since Dillashaw first defeated Barao for the title at UFC 173, using footwork and constant movement that many described as being very “Cruz-like” in fashion. Cruz always had a very unique fighting style, one that cemented him as the best bantamweight fighter in the world before a series of knee injuries put him on the shelf for almost 3 years. He made his long-awaited return last year, by destroying Takeya Mizugaki at UFC 178, before suffering another knee injury that cost him a chance to reclaim his belt earlier this year.

Well, fingers crossed, everybody, as Cruz is healthy and training again and ready to take the fight that has been waiting for him for so long. It’s time to find out who the best bantamweight in the world is. Will it be Dillashaw? Will it be Cruz? Whoever wins, it’s going to make for a great Payperview headliner!

What’s that? The fight isn’t on Payperview?

Oh, okay. I get it. UFC wants to do a big FOX show during the NFL playoffs. That’s a great idea. I can’t wa—

The fight is going to be on FOX Sports 1? Seriously?

That’s right. The big Dillashaw vs. Cruz championship fight will be going into the record books as the very first title fight on FOX Sports 1, the channel that UFC is still struggling to get fans to tune into on fight night.

The live fights UFC presents on FOX Sports 1 tend to bring in an audience that ranges in size from 500,000-900,000 viewers. There have been shows that have exceeded 1 million viewers, though. Those events are usually either prelims for major Payperviews or Fight Nights that feature well known fighters in headlining bouts, such as Chael Sonnen, Lyoto Machida, or McGregor.

Having a title fight on the channel can be considered a big deal, just like how UFC considered it a big deal when Joanna Jędrzejczyk defended her strawweight championship on UFC Fight Pass, even though I had forgotten about that fight up until I wrote the first part of this sentence, but a championship by itself is not enough to get people to tune in. UFC should know that. UFC Flyweight Champion Demetrious Johnson has, unfortunately, made it clear that, just because a fighter has a gold belt around their waist, that doesn’t mean the audience at large is interested in seeing that fighter compete.

TJ Dillashaw is a good fighter. He has proven that by, not just obliterating Barao, but by doing it again even worse in the rematch. That fight took place on FOX, which is an indication that UFC isn’t confident in Dillashaw’s abilities as a Payperview draw, a silent criticism that is understandable but a little unfair considering the circumstances behind TJ’s two Payperview main events.

Dillashaw’s first Payperview main event at UFC 173 (buyrate: 215,000) saw him thrown into a fight that came together almost at the last minute after the fight that was supposed to main event, a fight featuring UFC Middleweight Champion Chris Weidman, fell apart. Dillashaw’s second Payperview main event at UFC 177 (buyrate: 125,000) saw him thrown into a fight that came together literally at the last minute when Barao failed to make the weigh-ins and UFC bumped Joe Soto from the prelims to the main event just so they wouldn’t have to pull TJ from the card (also known as “The Matyushenko”).

Can Dillashaw be blamed for those two situations resulting in poor buyrates? I don’t think so. Right now, TJ has the tools to be a top-drawing champion. He’s good-looking, he’s well-spoken, even a little cocky, during interviews, and he can dominate opponents and finish fights, something that Cruz failed to do as champion.

The only real knocks against TJ right now is a lack of top competition (not his fault), not being a strong self-promoter (partly his fault but also a failing of the UFC promotional machine), and the fact that he’s the champ of one of the lower weight classes (the fault of ignorant fans who would rather see 250 pound men blow up after two minutes than see 135 pound men go full blast for 15).

Cruz suffers from many of those same issues with the added problem of all the time he’s spent away from the sport thanks to injuries. There was a lot of buzz that was created after his return last September, even with his fight being on the prelims and not the main card, but that buzz is gone now.

There’s no guarantee that, had Cruz been active all this time, he’d be a top drawing fighter right now, but his main event at UFC 132 against Urijah Faber did garner 350,000 buys, which is a pretty good number in today’s UFC, much better than what Dillashaw has pulled so far.

I know that part of the thinking in booking this fight when they did is to get the NFL bump that all UFC events tend to receive during football season. The thing I wonder, though, is if UFC really wants to feel the full benefit of a pro football lead-in, why is the fight happening on FOX Sports 1 and not big FOX? UFC has been scheduling a January card on FOX every year since the TV deal began but there currently isn’t one on the schedule for next year.

Maybe one will be added in the next month or two but it seems like a wasted opportunity to have a fight night air on another channel after the NFL playoffs end, hoping that any advertising that airs during the game (we all know how much Joe and Troy love pimping that MMA action) will be enough to entice viewers to switch over instead of having a fight card air on the same channel immediately after the game ends (and after Jimmy Johnson is done talking about erectile dysfunction medication, or whatever happens during the NFL post-game shows), giving sports fans plenty of reason to sit back down, step away from the remote, and enjoy a night of hard-hitting action, all capped off by two of the most uniquely destructive forces in the lower weight classes finally getting the chance to go all Highlander on each other.

That sounds like a pretty good night to me, doesn’t it?

I mean, I’ll be watching, but that’s also because I’ve already come to terms with the fact that the Bears won’t be making it back to the playoffs anytime soon. C’mon, Cutler. Can’t you be more like…um…who was the last great Bears quarterback?

It’s going to be a long football season.

Evan Zivin has been writing for 411 MMA since May of 2013. Evan loves the sport, and likes to takes a lighthearted look at the world of MMA in his writing…usually.