Rob Font’s stock is at an all-time high right now after an impressive decision win over Cody Grabrandt extended his current winning streak to four fights and left him ranked No.3 in the bantamweight division.
Now the focus is on who Font would like to face next, and while he’s more than willing to entertain talk of going up against former champ Petr Yan or Jose Aldo, he appears to have absolutely no interest in facing another ex-champion in Dominick Cruz.
“Maybe the Aldo fight [would interest me],” Font told MMA Fighting. “The Cruz one, not so much. He’s nowhere near that belt at all [while] Jose is a little closer. [Dominick] has the name but nobody’s dying to watch Dominick Cruz fight. If anything, I’d probably fight Sean O’Malley before I’d fight Dominick Cruz.
“That’s the guy that’s kind of buzzing right now. He’s got that name and I can’t wait for him to fight [next]. Nobody is sitting here dying to watch Dominick Cruz fight. But I’m not gonna lie, I wouldn’t mind watching a ‘Sugar’ Sean fight. I think he’s the bigger name if anything.
“…I don’t want to fight backwards. If it comes down to it, I’m assuming the Jose Aldo-Pedro Punhoz fight will be good. If Munhoz wins, I can avenge that loss. If Jose Aldo wins, that’s a pretty big name to jump in there with.
“Realistically, I would rather wait to see how everything else plays out.”
After a long layoff lasting several years, Cruz returned to action in May of last year in an immediate title fight against Henry Cejudo, but lost by TKO, though he has since rebounded with a split decision win against Casey Kenney in March.
It’s somewhat understandable that Font would rather face another ex-champ like Aldo instead though, given that ‘Scarface’ is only ranked one position behind him at No.4, while Cruz is currently further back at No.9.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see how Cruz handles the stinging criticism from Font about his current market value, and whether that potential bad blood could actually make it more likely that these two bantamweight stars will cross paths at some stage in the future.
