Dominick Cruz suffered his first loss in nearly a decade at UFC 207 last December, coming up short on the judges’ scorecards to Cody Garbrandt, coughing up his bantamweight title in the process (see it again here).

As Cody gears up to defend his 135-pound strap for the first time on July 8, 2017 at UFC 213 in Las Vegas, Nevada against T.J. Dillashaw (details here), Cruz will keep a close eye on the action, as “The Dominator” wants the chance to face the winner, though it doesn’t seem as if the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) matchmakers are completely on board.

“Well I told Sean Shelby what I wanted to do and he’s like, ‘Well, I don’t know if that’s necessarily...’ he’s saying he doesn’t know. I’m saying this is the fight that needs to happen at 135 pounds,” Cruz said during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour.

To hear Dominick explain the UFC’s bantamweight landscape, Cody, Dillashaw and himself are the only three fighters people really know — or care about — and it’s all thanks to his longstanding title reign, as well as his knack of talking up his foes on national television.

“There are three people that people know and it’s me, T.J., and Cody. And the reason you know us three is because I’ve been fighting these two people, and I’ve been talking about them and I’ve been building them on FOX and giving them a lot of shine and I’ve also been bashing on them, too.” he said.

“But, the mixture of the entire thing has built the three of us and I think that between the three of us, we can fight for 10 years and probably have a good fight. But, realistically, that’s the fight that makes sense to me. It doesn’t make sense to me to go down in the division. I’m the number one contender now, and to fight backwards in the division, after the amount of title defenses I’ve had in the past, it just doesn’t resonate or make sense to me,“ added Cruz.

“I am here to fight the best in the world and fight for the title. I think I’ve earned that position, and if I got completely to where I wasn’t even in that fight, I would understand, but I was in that fight from beginning to end. In that fifth round, I’d even say that I won. So there still a case for me in this matchup against Cody or T.J., either one,” concluded the former 135-pound champion.

As for who he feels will win, Cruz expects Dillashaw to regain the title, setting up a rematch between the two scrappy combatants. Cruz defeated T.J. at UFC Fight Night 81 in January of 2016, which marked Dominick’s first fight in a year and a half.

Anyone agree with Cruz’s stance? Or is there another worthy contender who deserves a crack at the belt, first?