UFC bantamweight Bryan Caraway is currently seeking a fight with champ Dominick Cruz, and barring that, one with the recently victorious John Lineker.

Will he get one? It depends on how the UFC looks at his last offer.

Recently cleared to fight after a shoulder injury, Caraway (21-7 MMA, 6-2 UFC) volunteered to meet Ricardo Lamas (16-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) on short notice when UFC Hall of Famer B.J. Penn (16-10-2 MMA, 12-9-2 UFC) fell out of UFC Fight Night 97.

“It was a main-event fight,” he today told MMAjunkie Radio. “I wanted to do a solid for the fans and the UFC.”

The fact that Caraway was moving up a weight division to meet a onetime featherweight title challenger did not give him pause. After taking heaps of flak – from fans and fellow fighters – that he dodges difficult matchups, he was driven to prove them wrong.

“The big mistake I made for a long time is I let people define who I am and define my career by not speaking out,” he said.

Caraway, the No. 12 ranked fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA bantamweight rankings, said his manager began negotiations for the fight. But the promotion instead decided to cancel the event.

It was back to the drawing board until an offer arrived to meet Lamas in Mexico City on Nov. 5 at UFC Fight Night 98, indicating Penn’s injury will sideline him for at least a month. Caraway still wanted the fight.

But this time, his manager pumped the brakes.

The manager, Daniel Martinez of Di-Cypher & Associates, argued that a fight on 10 days’ notice was a risk worth taking. A fight on one month’s notice outside his weight class was not.

So, Caraway said, Martinez asked for a slight bump in compensation and a guaranteed title shot as a bantamweight – an unusual request given a sudden move to a different division, but one that might mitigate the potential downsides of a loss. (Martinez confirmed the fighter’s account in a brief interview with MMAjunkie.)

“The UFC came back and said, ‘We’re going to find somebody else in his own weight class,'” Caraway said. “Now I’m pushing to either fight Cruz and if not him, I would love to fight Lineker. I think that would be a great eliminator fight. One of us is getting knocked out or submitted.”

Caraway, who in May outpointed the highly regarded and then-unbeaten Aljamain Sterling to pick up his second consecutive UFC win, is undoubtedly a few steps behind in the race to cast himself as a fighter who will take on any challenge. Several fighters have accused him of cowardice, despite his attempts to explain his rationale behind taking matchups. He now plans to make up ground by taking his case to the public.

He disputes a claim from No. 7-ranked Cody Garbrandt that he ducked a matchup, stating he was not cleared to fight when the UFC offered the matchup and called out the now-surging bantamweight when he was cleared.

“As soon as I got my injuries healed up, I called him out,” Caraway said. “I said, ‘Let’s do this.'”

Garbrandt, however, is expected to get the next bantamweight title shot, while No. 8-ranked Lineker, a fighter who once accepted Caraway as a potential opponent, is also angling for an opportunity after a win over John Dodson at UFC Fight Night 96 earlier this month.

As long as Cruz’s plans aren’t official, Caraway said he’ll keep fighting to rehabilitate his image.

“If I was a fighter who ducked fights, I wouldn’t be calling John Lineker out, who’s a top-10 ranked fighter and is coming off a win,” Caraway said. “I wouldn’t have offered to step up on 10 days’ notice to fight Ricardo Lamas for the main event and replace B.J. Penn. What kind of fighter would do that and duck fights?

“That being said, I do have management, and they’re in charge with the political side of the sport, and I want to fight for the title. I want to fight top-ranked guys. I’ll fight on any given day, but my management is constantly telling me there are checks and balances, and things have to make sense pay wise.

“I’ve called out tons of other guys before fights and it doesn’t happen. But you don’t see me going on Twitter and saying people are ducking. That’s not my style. I don’t try to bully people. Look how famous (my girlfriend) Miesha (Tate) is – she doesn’t go that route. So I think there’s other options.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 97, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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