Garbrandt's head coach explains key to beating Cruz
Garbrandt's head coach explains key to beating Cruz By Damon Martin, FOXSports.com
It didn’t take much time into the opening round between Cody Garbrandt and Dominick Cruz for Team Alpha Male head coach Justin Buchholz to know the fight was swinging in favor of the challenger.
Buchholz has coached, cornered or trained for fights with Cruz numerous times before while working with Urijah Faber, Joseph Benavidez and TJ Dillashaw, but it was something about Garbrandt’s performance in those first couple of exchanges that let him know this was going to end differently than all the other matchups before it.
Garbrandt showed no fear in the face of Cruz’s constant movement, but it was actually one of his early taunts that had Buchholz brimming with confidence.
“I wasn’t that surprised the way things went. I felt like Cody was just on another level but I’ve got to say within the first minute, Cody did a little shimmy-shake on him and hit him with a couple dance moves and Cruz just looked at him like ‘are you serious?’. From there I was like we’ve got the upper hand now,” Buchholz told the Fight Society podcast.