LAS VEGAS – After months of yet another animosity-filled fight promotion, UFC champ Dominick Cruz explained the simple strategy to get under his opponents’ skins: hitting them with truths.

In fact, in several of Cruz’s (22-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC) verbal beatdowns on the lead-up to UFC 207’s co-headlining scrap against Cody Garbrandt (10-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC), the champ has made it clear: he was only “telling the truth.”

A few days before they finally square off in the octagon, it seems he still has some honesty to get out of his system.

“(Garbrandt’s) ignorance is his bliss – and that’s plain and simple,” Cruz said. “I think that that’s his biggest power – he’s telling himself all these positive things, he’s got people in his ear telling him these positive things, ‘You hit hard, you’re athletic, you’re too this, you’re too that,’ and he listens to it.

“And he believes it, because he’s had some knockouts in his pro career so far against guys that have been in the top 20. So, that being said, his ignorance is his peace, that’s his bliss, that’s where he gets his strength.”

Telling yourself things, however, can only take you so far. And the UFC’s 135-pound titleholder had a reminder that, “savage” on-camera attitude aside, Garbrandt is still going to have to meet him inside the octagon at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas

“He’s got this self-perceived image of himself of wanting to be an alpha,” Cruz said. “So he’s got to put that out there to everybody, he’s got to be real loud about it. And, two, to also be a savage in his own head. ‘I’m a savage, I’m a savage. I’m going to break your jaw, I’m crazy, I’ve got a lot of tattoos, I act crazy, I look mean, I’m mad, I’ve got daddy issues.’ All this stuff.

“So he’s got to portray that. He’s got to put on that show for all of you guys. And that’s what makes him look tough. For me, I’m going to be me. I’m going to be myself. If he wants to act that way he can, but we’ve got a date. The fight is happening.”

In regards to said fight, Cruz doesn’t seem that concerned either. After successfully facing some of Garbrandt’s Team Alpha Male stablemates – most notably now-retired Urijah Faber, who lost to Cruz twice after becoming the first (and still only) fighter to ever beat him – the champ thinks they have proven unable to figure him out.

“I’ve fought them for 27-plus rounds,” Cruz said. “I’ve maybe lost five of those rounds against the corners that he’s going to have there, against his teammates, the teammates that I’ve made a living off of, of ‘Team Alpha Fail.’”

That his corners can’t help him, Cruz says, is a realization that Garbrandt is going to come to the hard way.

“None of those guys have a clue what to do with me,” Cruz said. “So there’s nothing they can tell him. He’s going to figure that out after the first round, when he’s in there punching, he’s in there missing, he’s looking for that big punch he’s landed on everybody else, and he goes to land that punch and I’m gone, I’m a ghost, I’m not there.

“And then he goes to do it again and I’m gone, I’m not there, and he’s getting hit, he’s getting hit, and when he goes and sits on that stool after the first round and he looks at his corners then he’s going to know that his corners have nothing they can tell him.”

For more on Cruz’s thoughts about Garbrandt, check out the video above.

And for more on UFC 207, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.