Newly-crowned WEC Bantamweight Champion Brian Bowles is in the final stages of preparations for his first title defense against Dominick Cruz at WEC 47 on March 6th, and while he is certainly looking forward to the bout, there is no denying that a lot of people are still looking back to Bowles' shocking victory over Miguel Torres in August at WEC 42.
Here's Bowles talking to the Las Vegas Sun about feeling like people are dismissing his victory as a fluke victory, despite his 7-0 record going into the bout;
"I don't exactly know what a lucky punch is. You're out there fighting. You're throwing punches, trying to hit somebody and you hit them. I don't know how that's lucky. It's kind of expected [the hesitance of people accepting him as champion], when somebody is as big of an underdog as I was, fighting a dominant champion, that's the way it works out. It's just like the lucky punch question. Would I have been better off to win by decision and have half the people say the decision should have gone to him? There's always going to be naysayers. I just have to know what happened. I have to know that I trained my butt off for that fight and I did things right... It's just like that [comparing his situation to Mike Brown's], Urijah was a dominant champion, he gets beat and now nobody knows what to do or what to say. They didn't know if he was a fluke or if he was really that good. He [Brown] beat Garcia and kept winning and then you realize, maybe he did deserve that win. So, that's what I have to do - keep winning... At this moment, all I'm focusing on is Cruz. That's easy to say, but that's what I'm doing. If it works out (Torres and I) fight again, cool. If it doesn't, whatever. All I have to do right now is worry about defending my title."
Cruz will be the underdog in the bout against Bowles, but he is a more than worthy challenger as he holds a 14-1 record in his career and is in the midst of a five-fight winning streak. He is 5-1 in the WEC, with his only loss coming to Urijah Faber in his debut fight in the promotion at WEC 26 when he challenged for Faber's WEC Featherweight Championship.
