I've argued this point on an unrelated post today, and I'm keen on making this a subject of it's own.
TLDR: Cruz has a better resume, has fought the tougher fighters, has more marquee wins and has more odds stacked against him - therefore he deserves more credit and should be considered a better fighter than Johnson. Oh, and of course he beat him easily before
I think Cruz is the better fighter, has the better resume and should 100% be ranked higher than DJ.
Resumes:
Let's look at their last 8 fights and compare opponents first:
Cruz:
W - Faber - UD
W - Dillashaw - SD
W - Mizugaki - KO
W -
Johnson - UD
W - Faber - UD
W - Jorgensen - UD
W - Benavidez - SD
W - Bowles - TKO
Johnson:
W - Cejudo - TKO
W - Dodson - UD
W - Horiguchi - Submission
W - Cariaso - Submission
W - Bagautinov - UD
W - Benavidez - KO
W - Moraga - Submission
W - Dodson - Decision
Comparing difficulty of recent opponents:
Good thing about 125lbs is the vast majority of fighters in that class actually used to fight at 135lbs, so we get a good gauge for who is actually the best fighter across weight classes.
If you were to compare match-ups I would say the below is pretty accurate:
Faber > Cejudo
Dillashaw > Dodson
Mizugaki = Horiguchi
Johnson > Cariaso
Faber > Bagautinov
Jorgensen < Benavidez
Benavidez > Moraga
Bowles = Dodson
That would mean by my estimation that Cruz has had the more difficult opponent 5 times out of 8 in their last 8 fights each. I have a few as pretty close e.g. Mizugaki/Horiguchi, and Dodson/Bowles.
Activity and length of career to date:
Cruz has been a fighter since Jan, 2005 - meaning he has a 11 year career. Please bear in mind that he was out with injuries for 3 years combined, meaning that in reality he's had more like a 8-9 year career.
Johnson has been a fighter since Apr, 2007 - meaning he has a 9 year career. No long standing injuries like Dominick, so they really have been active for around the same amount of time.
Level of success whilst fighting:
Cruz - 22-1
Johnson - 24-2-1
Johnson has 2 more wins, but has 2 times more where he did not achieve victory e.g. loss and draw. So essentially they are pretty much dead even in terms of success, but guess what the tie-breaker is?
Cruz beat Johnson with ease, yes it's true.
I cannot understand the people that believe Johnson and Cruz are fighting with the same handicap. Surely being near to unbeatable after having career-altering injury, after injury, after injury, gives you a small advantage in an argument like this.
Summary:
I think it's obvious that Cruz edges Johnson out on this discussion.
I believe if you compare;
Resumes, strength of schedule, the physical challenges for Dominick and finally the fact that Dominick handily defeated Demetrious - it is enough to prove that he is simply the better fighter at this moment.
I think we need to see that SuperFight to put an end to this, once and for all.
