Cody Garbrandt

Overview

Six straight UFC wins to open a career, then eight losses in the next twelve fights. Cody Garbrandt's UFC run splits cleanly in two, and the dividing line is a pair of fights with TJ Dillashaw.

"No Love" is a Bantamweight out of Uhrichsville, Ohio, who trains with Team Alpha Male (Urijah Faber's Ultimate Fitness). He is 10-8 in the UFC and 15-8-0 across all promotions. Six of his ten UFC wins came by knockout, four of them in the first round. That is a finisher's résumé attached to a record that has lost more often than it has won since 2017.

Power got him to the top of the division. It has also been the way he loses. Five of his eight UFC losses are knockouts.

UFC Career

Garbrandt debuted on the UFC 182 card in January 2015 with a third-round TKO of Marcus Brimage at 4:50, then beat Henry Briones by unanimous decision. After that, the knockouts came fast: Augusto Mendes in the first round, then Thomas Almeida in his first main event, a first-round finish at 2:53 that our model rates as a strong opponent. Takeya Mizugaki went down in 48 seconds.

The sixth win was the one that mattered. At UFC 207 he went five rounds with Dominick Cruz and won a unanimous decision. It is the only five-round win on his record, and it ended a 6-0 start.

Then came TJ Dillashaw, an elite opponent by our model. Garbrandt lost by second-round TKO at UFC 217, and by first-round TKO at 4:10 in the main event rematch at UFC 227. Pedro Munhoz made it three straight knockout losses, stopping him at 4:52 of the first round.

He answered with a second-round TKO of Raphael Assuncao at 4:59, one second from the end of the round. A five-round decision loss to Rob Font in a main event and a first-round TKO loss to Kai Kara-France followed.

Since then it has been a pattern of one step forward, one step back: wins over Trevin Jones, Brian Kelleher and Xiao Long, with losses to Deiveson Figueiredo (submission, round 2), Raoni Barcelos (decision) and Adrian Yanez (first-round TKO at 2:47). He carries that last loss into his next fight.

Six fast starts, then a long grind.

Fighting Style

Garbrandt is a striker who is hard to hit but not a volume puncher. He lands fewer strikes per minute than most and is less accurate than most. He gets hit about as often as the average UFC fighter.

His grappling is almost nonexistent on offense. He rarely shoots for takedowns and rarely hunts for submissions, yet he is very hard to take down. That keeps most of his fights standing.

His finishing pattern is one-sided. All six of his stoppage wins came by KO/TKO, none by submission, and the other four wins went to decision. Four of the six stoppages came in the first round, one in the second and one in the third.

Notable Wins

• Dominick Cruz — unanimous decision, round 5, UFC 207 (2016)
• Thomas Almeida — KO/TKO, round 1, UFC Fight Night: Almeida vs Garbrandt (2016)
• Raphael Assuncao — KO/TKO, round 2, UFC 250 (2020)

Quick Facts

• Division: Bantamweight
• UFC record: 10-8
• Professional record (all promotions): 15-8-0
• UFC debut: January 2, 2015
• Stance: Orthodox
• Height / reach: 5'8" / 65.5"
• Team: Team Alpha Male (Urijah Faber's Ultimate Fitness)
• Born: Uhrichsville, OH, United States