At this point it is safe to ask; who is Dominick Cruz? In the world of the UFC, which seems to move very quickly at times and evolve over the years. Since the days of Dominick Cruz’s UFC Bantamweight title reign we’ve seen most of the weight classes change champions, sometimes once, sometimes multiple times, which is just to highlight how long he’s been out of the game. Meanwhile, Renan Barao has won the UFC Interim Bantamweight Championship and defended that title twice.
There is still no solid return date for Dominick Cruz and honestly, it’s probably time to drop the “Interim” tag from Barao’s Championship, which Dana White says he’ll do if Cruz doesn’t return before early 2014. In White’s mind, though, Barao is the real champion, which is a nice sentiment, but just that, a sentiment.
For all intents and purposes Renan Barao is the real champion. He is the one beating the guys that need to be beat.
Renan Barao is a champion. If you look at Renan Barao and everything he’s done, he’s beat everybody that Dominick Cruz was healthy and was the champion. It takes nothing away from him other than that pin, that placeholder until Dominick Cruz comes back.