Coach: Garbrandt’s Mike Tyson like mentality carried him to win

Former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz has one of the best trash talking games in mixed martial arts history. He verbally destroyed the then challenger leading up to their fight at UFC 207, causing a series of angry outbursts.

Then Cruz lost.

Garbrandt’s head coach Justin Buchholz appeared recently on Brian Stann’s Toe-2-Toe podcast and said he was not concerned pre fight, as Garbrandt enjoys a Mike Tyson like mentality. Buchholz obviously meant the, “My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious,” Mike Tyson. Not the Mike who then said, “I want your heart, I want to eat his children, praise be to Allah.”

Going into that fight we had all kinds of altercations in camp between some of Dominick’s team and our team,” said the coach, as transcribed by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “There were little street fighting situations between us, and when I saw the big shift, where I really was confident in Cody’s mentality, that Cody was in his head, was when Dominick said ‘that’s the kind of energy Cody’s putting off, I need to match that energy.’ I was like, ‘hey homeboy you’re not gonna match that energy.’

This guy’s from the streets of Uhrichsville, Ohio. This guy has been stabbed, he’s had teeth in his knuckles, as a teenager he’s had to fight grown-ass men. That’s a Mike Tyson mentality that Cody has. Mentally, he lives off that stuff. He gets hyped up. He’s like, ‘Oh you’re talking s***? You talking crap about my friends? Let’s meet behind the school at the flagpole. You bring your friends, I’ll bring mine. It’s a fight.’ He loves that kind of stuff. It’s gonna be tough for somebody to get in Cody’s head. His mentality couldn’t have been better.

Garbrandt clowned Cruz as mercilessly during the fight as Cruz had mocked him pre fight. Garbrandt even bust out some hip hop moves at one point. The coach hadn’t planned that, but he appreciated it.

I knew he had some club moves, but I’ve never seen him like that,” said Buchholz. “That was amazing. I was saying this before, this is the only fight where I ever sat back and enjoyed one of my fighter’s works. I just sat back in the fourth round after he dropped him for the third time and just – he’s comfortable in there, he’s putting on a performance and I was just cheering for him. At one point, me and Danny Castillo started yelling at Cruz. I’ve never done that in a fight. It was just amazing to watch.

Next up for Garbrandt may be former TAM member T.J. Dillashaw. When Dillashaw switched teams, the ever loyal Garbrandt was not impressed. The pair got into an extended bitter Twitter quarrel. Buchholz like the fight.

I’m the head coach of Team Alpha Male,” said the head coach. “Cody’s my guy. T.J.’s no longer on the team so it’s not an issue with me at all. You’ve got to look at that fight and all the advantages are with us, obviously. I’ve cornered T.J. more than Duane has. I lived with T.J. I showed T.J. how to sit in his stance when he first came to the gym and had zero MMA fights. I was there through his amateur career to when he won the belt to when he lost the belt. I even cornered him when he fought Cruz, when he had left the gym since we had a close relationship… That’s Cody’s first sparring partner. So the advantages are all in our court on that one.

I don’t know if that’s next because Cody has called out Aldo and McGregor and he’s in that area. He has the spotlight on him right now and he decides who he fights. He’s the champion of the world. He beat the linear champion Dominick Cruz definitively, took the belt, and he’s gonna make the rules and fight who he wants to fight which is the biggest money fight.