Sports

UFC champ Cruz blames fans booing smaller fighters on ‘ignorance’

The first-ever UFC flyweight championship fight last month was booed at times by fans in Toronto, though others found the fast-paced battle between two of the smallest guys in the company riveting.

Bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz blames “ignorance” for the negative reaction.

“I’m not surpised that people were booing it,” Cruz told The Post. “I think that the sport is still fairly new to fans. It’s the fastest growing sport in the world.”

Cruz, who will be a guest analyst Saturday for UFC on Fuel TV’s pre- and post-fight shows, thinks that as UFC’s popularity becomes more widespread fans will become more knowledgable about in-cage strategy. Right now, though, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Smaller fighters provide less knockouts, but also a lot more cardiovascular energy – they can fight faster and longer than bigger man. You just won’t see as much blood or finishes. Flyweights weigh 125 pounds, while Cruz fights one class above at 135.

“People will start understanding you can’t throw haymakers for 25 minutes and get out of the cage in one piece or have a career,” Cruz said. “These guys are going through eight-week camps of hell and putting their brains, souls and hearts on the line for fans.”

Following that fight at UFC 152, won by Demetrious Johnson over Joseph Benavidez, UFC president Dana White angrily told anyone booing during the bout not to buy another company pay per view. Interestingly, he’s pegged Johnson’s first title defense against John Dodson as the main event for UFC on Fox 6 in January in Chicago.

“Every time we put people on Fox it’s to showcase them,” White told The Post. “I don’t know how the [expletive] you can boo John Dodson. The guy is so [expletive] exciting. The great thing that I love about [Johnson] is that he’s so fast nobody can keep up with him. Dodson might be faster.”

Cruz is currently out rehabbing a torn ACL. He plans to defend his title sometime in the first half of 2013 against interim champion Renan Barao. In the meantime, he’s getting a leg up on a post-fight career in broadcasting. Cruz is pumped up about breaking down the UFC on Fuel main event Saturday in Macau between exciting veterans Rich Franklin and Cung Le.

It’s the UFC’s first trip to China and will air on Fuel live at 9 a.m. The replay is on at 7 p.m. with the pre-fight show beginning an hour earlier.

You gotta look at the style and you just say, man this fight is gonna be awesome,” Cruz said of Franklin-Le. “This fight is going to be a crazy fight to watch.”

He was saying the same things about Johnson-Benavidez even though some were not.

“You can’t let it hurt you,” Cruz said. “It’s somewhat ignorance on some people’s views of the sport. I don’t take it offensively, because I know people don’t understand what I’m doing in there. They don’t see that I just threw a three-punch combination to setup the takedown that I just landed.”

mraimondi@nypost.com