There could have been a lot of collateral damage over Dominick Cruz vs. Hans Molenkamp, according to Monster Energy-sponsored Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter, Jessica-Rose Clark.
The former UFC Bantamweight champion called out Molenkamp during his post-fight speech at UFC 259 back in March. Cruz accused Molenkamp of using his position with Monster to take advantage of fighters for his personal benefit. Cruz confirmed earlier this week on MMA Fighting’s The MMA Hour that both parties had buried the hatchet; however, Clark still has a bone to pick with “The Dominator.”
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“His whole argument was that Hans is a clout chaser but Hans isn’t using Dom’s name for f—king anything,” Clark told Drake Riggs for My MMA News. “Dom’s the one who brought him up in that interview and was all, ‘Ah, I’ll still fight him for charity.’ Who’s clout chasing now, Dominick Cruz?
“I don’t know, that whole thing pissed me off because one, I’ve been friends with Hans since before I was ever on the Monster team. He was one of the very first friends I made when I moved to the U.S. His kids call me ‘Auntie Jessy,’ I’m super close with his wife. He’s such a f—king great man and he goes out of his way to help everyone that he can. And for Dom to turn around and do that because I don’t know what his reason was, he was still contracted by Monster, he was still getting paid by them every month. I don’t know what created that.”
Clark — who fights Joselyne Edwards at UFC Vegas 41, which will take place this weekend (Sat., Oct. 23, 2021) inside UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada, streaming online via ESPN+ — said Cruz’s selfish antics could have had huge repercussions for Monster-sponsored fighters.
“He put all of us on the chopping block,” Clark continued. “I nearly lost my job, we all almost lost our jobs because of him. Because he was f—king selfish. I’m glad that they’ve worked stuff out because I don’t care about Dominick Cruz at all. But I’m glad for Hans’ sake that they’ve worked it out because it put so much stress on him because him and Dom have been friends for years. That was heartbreaking to have someone that you thought was a friend call you out publicly like that when you hadn’t done anything to them. That was f—ked up, that was a d—k move.
“I’m glad that it’s kind of washed away now because I don’t know that many people understand how much damage Dominick did, not just to Hans but to all of us, every single person on the Monster team. He jeopardized all of our jobs and I’ll forever be angry at him about that.”
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