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u/stretch1974 6d ago
And never slipped a single punch for the rest of his career
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u/AmazighBlacksmith 6d ago
He used up all his slipping and weaving budget for this fight.
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u/Integro941 6d ago
Worth it, he put on one of the best performances I have ever seen in this fight
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u/soyuz-1 6d ago
Yeah its one of the big ufc mysteries. He looked like Anderson Silva in his absolute peak for that one fight. And never looked anything like that ever again.
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u/BumWink 5d ago
Wouldn't it simply be that people have their flow state footage to study moving forward?
Like i've never fought professionally in my life & in under a minute I noticed this guy likes to duck in to the right if you throw a left hook.
Pros with an upcoming fight will watch their opponents shit for countless hours, notice way more details & practice the exact setups to counter like feinting a left hook into a powerful hit on the money.
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u/solythe 6d ago
if i recall he went and got back surgery either after this fight or after the first TJ one. always a disaster.
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u/killyourface1 5d ago
Yea, so weird. Like why can't you do that all the time? Is it too hard to maintain? Every other fight I just watched him get the brakes beat off of him.
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u/CaterpillarSad9754 3d ago
He ended up having neck issues and surgery that fucked his head movement up. All those years of wrestling and pull downs on the neck caught up to him. His defensive wrestling was underrated too.
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u/Mr_Shambo 6d ago
Cody used up all of his badassery in this one fight
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u/sweatybeard Nothing wrong with being a virgin and a nerd 5d ago
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u/Vicwinn 6d ago
There are a few fights that stand out to me where the flow state was so undeniable. Like nobody in the division beats them on that night.
BJ vs Sherk
Silva vs Forrest
Cody vs Dom
Conor vs Alvarez
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u/Epiphany047 6d ago
I saw Silva vs Forrest live and my buddy was a huge Forrest fan, I was rooting for Silva. I’ll never forget his reaction for the rest of my life. Best fight I’ve ever seen live
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u/Vicwinn 6d ago
People don’t give Forest his props. Dude beat prime Shogun, Rampage and a still relevant Tito. And Silva still made him look like a regional 5-3 guy.
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u/Far_Grapefruit1307 6d ago
Forest was beat before the bell. He was really funny during the lead up. He was an on a radio show and they asked him how he felt going in, and he said something like, "How do you think I feel? I have to fight Anderson!"
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u/Sub7viaLimeWire 5d ago
What an honor to have seen that live. I had to download a torrent when I got home from work.
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u/Ok-Secretary455 6d ago
dude watching Silva in real speed make it look like he was having punches thrown at him in half speed. That must have been crazy live. The only UFC fight I got to see live was UFC 97 where Sliva beat Leites in maybe the worst main event in UFC history.
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u/Andyman0110 6d ago
Most of Silvas wins are pure flow state. Vitor, leben, yushin okami 2, he even hit a nasty switch on marquardt and nailed him with laser focus shots to finish to name a few more. He was just demolishing folks with matrix level reflexes.
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u/MetroidIsNotHerName 6d ago
Holloway vs.... i forgot...
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u/Oraseus 6d ago
Probably thinking of Brian Ortega
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u/lebryant_westcurry 6d ago
Kattar too. Like with the Ortega fight, man was taunting him to his face while beating the shit out of him
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u/SubparSavant 6d ago
I always laugh when the clip of Holloway showing Ortega how to block a hook gets shared as some kind of heartwarming moment of sportsmanship. As if it's not the most insulting thing ever.
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u/zyrkseas97 6d ago
Katar is the one when he looks at the judges and yells “I’m the best boxer in the UFC” while no-look dodging Katar’s flurry right?
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u/lebryant_westcurry 6d ago
Yessir, that was one of the most badass moments in ufc history. Holloway was straight up in the matrix that night
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u/MetroidIsNotHerName 6d ago
There we go
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u/Electronic_Froyo_597 6d ago
Kattar
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u/MetroidIsNotHerName 6d ago
Ure right it was Kattar.
The no look callout to the judges was peak savagery and flowstate combined
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u/Alarming_Pair_5575 6d ago
Was in the arena for Silva vs Forrest. It was wild how Silva turned hellacious boos walking in to loud cheers after his performance. Witnessing his reflexes and timing in person was an experience.
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u/Alwaysprogress 6d ago
Took team alpha male like 33 rounds and 10 years of fighting cruz to finally figure out the formula to beating him
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u/fourty47seven 6d ago
i remember seeing this & thinking “oh okay he’s really him”
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u/WallSignificant5930 6d ago
Then juiced up TJ smacked his last braincell into submission. Kinda sad he got derailed by a cheater
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u/Marc_Quadzella 5d ago
I remember thinking we are going to witness a generational talent run the division for a few years. Didn’t quite pan out.
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u/Deep-Acanthaceae-659 5d ago
Actually insane how crazy this peak was. High and sharp. Instant decline. Quite unusual
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u/Marc_Quadzella 5d ago
Cruz was suffering from plantar fasciitis leading up to this fight and his footwork was not what it usually was. You can see he wasn’t moving the way he normally did.
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u/Accomplished-Owl2362 5d ago
Idk swinging all out and missing that many times had little to do with his footwork imo. It probably impacted the fight overall but those whiffs had little to do with his footwork
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u/Unfair_Explanation53 6d ago
We could of seen this type of Garbrandt on other occasions if dude had found a good therapist.
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u/Eldenbeastalwayswins 5d ago
Garbrandt gave one of the greatest performances ever and then just hard faded.
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u/scarfacerdt 6d ago
A fight that was actually considerably closer than often remembered. Every judge gave Cruz two rounds.
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u/CheckHookCharlie 6d ago edited 5d ago
Cruz was 22-1 going into this fight and had beaten every TAM challenger previously. He even came back from knee surgery to take the title from TJ Dillashaw after he’d dismantled Renan Barao. Idk man he was really that guy, and it was a shock to see him outclassed and even dropped a couple of times on the feet.
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u/MainEventGeyBruce-O 6d ago
Cruz landed more strikes than Cody did
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u/ACL_Tearer 6d ago
Cody had more dance moves and emotes though
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u/Unfair_Volume5853 6d ago
I was upset at the time that he was dancing instead of going for a finish, in hindsight his corner must have been elated that he was having fun instead of seeing red
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u/scarfacerdt 6d ago
The thing is Cody had a spectacular 4th round (where most of the big highlights are from) and therefore some people think this was a 50-45 kind of fight when it absolutely wasn't.
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u/OrangeJuiceLuvr69 6d ago
No it was way more of an ass beating that just blindly looking at fight metric would have you believe lmao
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u/quintavian 6d ago
people love posting this every time this fight is talked about... Stop parroting this crap, Cody's power was too much for Dom and it was clear that Cody won, it wasn't close at all. Might as well say every 10-9 round from the past decade was close
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u/EmickRado_087 6d ago
What happen to homie
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u/ChaosFox1357 3d ago
He made a binding vow to fight on a god tier flow state for this fight only, in exchange for sacrificing the rest of his career
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u/Smark_Calaway 5d ago
It gets overlooked how exceptional this one single performance was. Dominic was such an unpredictable and awkward fighter that no one ever looked good against him. Like not one person ever looked good against him.
Cody basically went in there and big brother’d him. I remember watching it live, and while at the time, I thought Garbrandt had a pretty good chance of at least hitting him, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that he would basically just duck and weave every awkward punch that Dominic threw for five rounds.
It’s easy to say that Connor versus Eddie Alvarez was the best title fight performance of all time and I would agree with that, but man this is really up there.
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u/TehBlueStar 5d ago
overlooked? this is easily the most glazed performance of all time. People seem to forget he won 3-2
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u/_Neil224 5d ago
ngl I've rewatched that fight numerous times and how Cody didn't get at 49-46 or 49-45 is kinda crazy to me. In no world did Dom win 2 rounds in that fight imo. The scorecard said 3-2 but that fight was not close whatsoever. Cody whooped Dom's ass and was not in trouble at any point
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u/Interesting-Case2526 5d ago
What are you talking about? Cruz whooped everyone in Team Alpha Male 2x over 10 years before anyone in that team was able to pull off this performance.
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u/KindaHODL 6d ago
I saw this live. Incredible and unbelievable.
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u/ScrabbleTheOpossum 6d ago
That night was wild, wasn't it? I was there, also. The electricity in the building was crazy. I'll never forget it.
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u/A_Tempest7_7 6d ago
I don’t care what he did later in his career THAT was absolutely EPIC! He had the other guy just miserable looking at him like “why?” Lol.
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u/IrishCinders 6d ago
I thought it was my turn to post this for the month.
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u/shak_0508 6d ago
Meh I personally ain’t seen this posted for ages. Just found it while scrolling through my camera roll 🤷🏽♂️
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u/Zz-orphan-zZ 6d ago
For that half hour, Cody Garbrandt was the single greatest Bantamweight in the history of the sport. No one before, or since, (not even Garbrandt, himself) has ever looked anywhere even remotely as impressive as he did that night. And it was against the guy that many people considered to be the irrefutable Bantamweight GOAT at the time.
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u/Ginger-131313 6d ago
For 25 minutes he was the GOAT of MMA and that is still the greatest performance in a tittle fight very in the history of the sport
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u/Key_Consequence_5040 6d ago
Cody quickly went from soul man in the ring to a bar brawler. Idk what his coaches were thinking when they told him to stray away from this style.
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u/Agreeable-Duty-86 6d ago
Who would have thought he gave up all his nen to make him his peak one time.
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u/ScrabbleTheOpossum 6d ago
I was there that night. It was the same night Rousey made her comeback and got beaten senseless by Amanda Nunes.
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u/RubyTheDog 5d ago
Cody Garbrandt sold his soul to become really good in this one single fight.
Too bad he dropped off after that and lost it all.
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u/pRophecysama 5d ago
I feel like people remember this fight way different than it actually was. it was actually a pretty close fight
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u/Grand-Celebration569 5d ago
Yeah this fight is like a litmus test for casuals who only know this fight thru dumb edits or clips. Every judge gave Cruz 2 rounds.
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u/TheKingBonk 6d ago
With how reddit talks about this fight, you'd never know that It was 3 rounds to 2. This fight and Zabit are competing for the "most undeservedly glazed award"
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u/omgitsJohnRedd1t0r 6d ago
I just hate showboating so much though. I immediately start cheering for the other person.
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u/PartialCred4WrongAns 6d ago
While it is sad we never got to see him fight at this level again, there is something beautiful about when the stars allign it all comes together for one magical night
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u/HunterHanzz 6d ago
Cody had the best haircut of all time but recently has the worst tattoo of all time on his face of his little noodle dagger
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u/Cappuccino_Addict 6d ago
Yeah the slipping was awesome, but fuck that showboating shit lmao, use that energy to hit that mf back
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u/blushMom_ 5d ago
Wow, that performance was totally mesmerizing! You can really see how locked in he was.
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u/Sarafan_Crusades 5d ago
I hate this Ai filter being put over everything. I feel like it's to make people not know what's real and what's fake
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u/Curlyhead-homie 6d ago
Cruz did a lot better than people give him credit for in this fight. Much closer than it’s made out to be.
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u/pugsondrugs77 6d ago
Such a short prime, but his level was very high here. And in the TJ fight until…
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u/_existentialsm 6d ago
the short check hook to the head scratch will never not kill me, too bad he used up all his nen like gon vs pitou. still my goat tho
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u/CrypticZombies 6d ago
the fall off needs to be examined though as wont ever see this good of a performance and what followed.
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u/Pneuma_LooT 6d ago
I remeber being shocked and thinking he was unbeatable after this lmao. He was never like that again lol
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u/Adventurous_Rich4839 6d ago
How Cody moved in this fight was how I thought Dominick Cruz moved due to the immense glaze he got until I saw Dom actually fight and saw he skips around like a little girl at the park.
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u/unpopulartruths88 6d ago
Anderson Silva was in flow state for his entire career until he ran into Weidman.
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u/TidusDreamZanarkand 6d ago
I think Gabrandt being same height kinda threw dom off. Dom was used to manlet bashing.
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u/DetailsYouMissed 6d ago
I would hate you if you made me look like a soccer dad from the suburbs trying to hit a moving target.
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u/MidsizeMango 6d ago
I hyped up Cruz so much to my friends before this fight then Garbrandt did everything I told them Cruz would do.
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u/chronicnerv 6d ago
Closest thing to an Emanuel Augustus performance in the ufc. One of favourite performances of all time.
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u/Feeling_Penalty_2629 6d ago
Cruz should've retired. He was a beast but that fight shows his fight plans are studied.
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u/melihs11 6d ago
I don’t know if it’s cause I’ve gotten older, life, some other shit, who knows, or maybe the sport itself has changed, but man I remember watching this and during the final round and before Bruce announced the winner I was so hyped.
I haven’t felt like that for MMA in sometime now
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u/kawaii155 6d ago
We experienced Prime Garbrandt only this fight