Despite being knocked out in their first fight, Cody Garbrandt does not lack for confidence heading into his rematch with T.J. Dillashaw.

This Saturday in the main event of UFC 227, Garbrandt will challenge Dillashaw for the bantamweight title he lost to Dillashaw last November and, up until now, the trash talk between the two has been relatively muted compared to their last fight. All of that changed this week though as Garbrandt started taking shots at Dillashaw during the open workouts, saying that the champion was trying to cherry-pick easy fights instead of taking on the best fighters in the bantamweight division.

“The simple fact is, T.J. didn’t want this fight, [the UFC] had to basically tell him,” Garbrandt said at the open workouts Wednesday. “He wanted to go down and fight Mighty Mouse. Even if he didn’t want to fight me, you didn’t see him wanting to fight Dominick [Cruz]. Dom has a win against him. He wants the easiest style match-up. He didn’t want to fight me - lord knows he doesn’t want to fight me, he knows what I bring to the table - Dominick’s already in his head with a win over him so he says, ‘I’m gonna go after Mighty Mouse.’ For what? Mighty Mouse is 125 pounds.”

Dillashaw knocked out Garbrandt at UFC 217 to reclaim the bantamweight belt, but before that he publicly lobbied for a fight with flyweight kingpin and pound-for-pound ace Demetrious Johnson when Garbrandt pulled out of their first scheduled bout. That fight never came to fruition but after KOing Garbrandt, Dillashaw renewed the push for the superfight but, according to Garbrandt, that fight was never going to happen because the UFC wants him to be the champion, not Dillashaw.

“That’s the thing, that was my whole idea,” Garbrandt said. “I ended up hitting up Sean Shelby and Dana White, saying I’m gonna knock T.J. out and then go down and fight Mighty Mouse. That was my original thought. T.J. stole that from me, stole everything from me. If the UFC wanted that fight to prosper, they would have made that fight happen. They don’t want that to happen. They already moved on. They want me to be the champ, that’s why the gave me the rematch. They called me and offered me the fight in March, T.J. turned it down and made all these excuses and I had to wait all the way until August to fight him. I was ready to go way before that. I told my manager, ‘I’m ready to fight. I don’t want to have my return postponed.’”

That postponement didn’t only hurt Garbrandt though. It’s been almost a year since the last bantamweight title fight and in that time, the 135-pound division has become backlogged with challengers. Dominick Cruz, Marlon Moraes, and Raphael Assuncao have all staked legitimate claims to the next title shot but the division is in somewhat of limbo waiting for this rivalry to play out. And according to Garbrandt, the division will just have to stay that way because on Saturday, ‘No Love’ intends to reclaim not only his belt, but also his idea for a superfight with Mighty Mouse.

“New blood, it’s fine,” Garbrandt said. “I’m glad these guys are going out there and putting on performances but who are they really fighting? I’d rather fight a guy that’s stapled himself as pound-for-pound, Demetrious Johnson. I think that’s the next fight to be made after I demolish T.J. on Saturday.”

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MUST-READ STORIES

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Khabib-Conor? UFC announces press conference Friday with ‘more than a dozen’ fighters to promote future cards.

Beef. T.J. Dillashaw, Cody Garbrandt verbally spar over ‘classless’ claim.

Lights Out. Former NFL All-Pro Shawne Merriman to make combat sports debut in bare knuckle boxing match.

GOAT. Henry Cejudo compares Demetrious Johnson’s greatness to LeBron James.

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VIDEO STEW

UFC 227 Timeline.

Embeddeds.

Ronda on Colbert.

Champ Life.

More No Love.

The Swansons.

A history of the UFC light heavyweight division.

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LISTEN UP

MMA Fighting Live Chat. Discussing UFC Calgary, Khabib-Conor, and UFC 227.

Heavy Hands. Discussing UFC Calgary and looking ahead to UFC 227.

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SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

Conor hinting he’s set with the UFC again.

Eddie.

Correia on why she was removed from 227.

Some old Garbrandt Tweets resurfaced yesterday.

Heavy stuff.

Man, everybody is getting with Parillo these days.

Ronda is apparently doing very well over in the WWE.

This is a good poster.

Unclear if TJ has ever seen Forrest Gump. Forrest wins at basically everything.

Thanos got Sage.

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FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Jan Blachowicz (22-7) v. Nikita Krylov (25-5); UFC Moscow, Sep. 15.

Krzysztof Jotko (19-4) vs. Adam Yandiev (9-0); UFC Moscow, Sep. 15.

Merab Dvalishvili (7-$) vs. Terrion Ware (17-7); UFC Moscow, Sep. 15.

Alexey Kunchenko (18-0) vs. Thiago Alves (22-12); UFC Moscow, Sep. 15.

Renan Barao (34-6, 1 NC) vs. Andre Ewell (13-4); UFC Sao Paulo, Sep. 22.

Sergio Pettis (17-3) vs. Jussier Formiga (21-5); UFC 229, Oct. 6.

Arjan Bhullar (7-1) vs. MArcelo Golm (6-1); UFC Moncton, Oct. 27.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Garbrandt: T.J. Dillashaw is a coward for wanting to fight Demetrious Johnson who is only the number one P4P fight in the sport and one of the best fighters ever.

Reporter: What’s next for you if you win?

Garbrandt: Demetrious Johnson.

*end scene*

Thanks for reading and see y’all tomorrow.

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EXIT POLL

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