Cody Garbrandt was destined to be a superstar, and he became just that. He was a state champion wrestler in high school as a freshman and a state runner up as a sophomore, he was also an accomplished football player. Basically, he was always going to be a star no matter what sport he was playing. 

At some point he lost his way, he stopped wrestling, even stopped boxing after compiling an undefeated record through thirty plus fights. Despite being recruited by several major colleges he ended up at a division two college to wrestle, but ended up quitting that as well. At one point in his life it seemed like his dream was dead and he was going to work a normal blue collar job like many around him. 

However, at one point he decided to fully commit to his amateur Mixed Martial Arts career, and by doing so he made the right choice. In eight amateur bouts Cody Garbrandt compiled a record of 6-2, and after three years he made the jump to the professional ranks in 2012. His pre-UFC career was a successful one as he was undefeated with a record of 5-0. All of his wins came by knockout and four of the five came in the first round as well. 

Two years after Cody made his professional debut, the UFC came calling. His UFC career got off to an absolute bang, as he had a thriller with Marcus Brimage. He would end up finishing that fight in the dying seconds and grab himself another knockout victory. 

Following the Brimage victory, Cody would step into the Octagon with Henry Briones. He would end up grabbing his seventh pro win in seven pro fights by unanimous decision. Three more fights would lead to three more victories over guys like Augusto Mendes and Thomas Almeida. 

After he finished Takeya Mizugaki in the first round within a minute, only one domino was left, and that was current UFC Bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz. In that fight those two top flight superstars put on one of the greatest UFC performances to date, but in the end the mountain top was reached. As Garbrandt became the brand new UFC Bantamweight champion. 

However, it could be argued that this is where the downfall started. As he was never able to defend his championship and was easily defeated by former campmate and ex friend TJ Dillashaw. However, it would come out after the fact that Dillashaw was using performance enhancing drugs leading up to, and during the fight.

After losing his title, and to be fair, a huge chunk of his pride, he was reeling for a while. He would lose his third straight find to Pedro Munhoz. However, he would follow it up with one of the best knockouts in the history of the sport. He knocked out Raphael Assuncao at the second round buzzer. 

Following his knockout of Assuncao, he would go onto lose to Rob Font before making the drop to flyweight. The transition didn’t go as well as he would’ve hoped as he was dominated by Kai Kara-France in a first round knockout. Following his loss to “Don’t Blink” at 269, a huge run of canceled fights would follow. He is set to step back into the Octagon in March at UFC 285: Gane vs Jones. He is scheduled to take on Julio Arce in the prelims of that card.