Sherdog’s Top 10: MMA Rivalries

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10. Dominick Cruz vs. Urijah Faber

The enmity between these two began when Faber submitted Cruz with a guillotine choke at WEC 26 to retain his World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight championship in March 2007. “The Dominator” cited his disappointment afterward and vowed vengeance against Faber, a promise on which he followed through four years later at UFC 132. There, Cruz was awarded a unanimous decision with the Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight crown on the line.

Their head-to-head series even at 1-1, Cruz and Faber continued to badmouth each other. “The California Kid” sought the rubber match, but a string of Cruz injuries resulted in his being stripped of the 135-pound title and forced both men to play a maddening waiting game. When Cruz toppled onetime Faber protégé T.J. Dillashaw to reclaim the bantamweight champion, the wheels for Cruz-Faber 3 were finally set in motion.

They met for a third time at UFC 199, where Cruz once again bested the Team Alpha Male patriarch and successfully defended his title with a unanimous decision. While they seemed to briefly bury the hatchet in the immediate aftermath, they were once again at each other’s figurative throats at the post-fight press-conference. Some things never change.

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