After being harangued by my girlfriend into watching a terrible movie on Netflix this past weekend, I didn’t get to see last Sunday’s main event between Dominick Cruz and T.J. Dillashaw until the next day. Though I bemoaned it at the time, getting to fast forward through literally hours of promotional mumbo jumbo and commercials for Fram oil filters was a godsend in retrospect.
And given the fact it was a Cruz fight, it felt fitting that it was postponed in some fashion. It even made sense that it happened on a Sunday, a move mostly out of character with regular Zuffa scheduling. Though he had only fought once in more than 50 calendar months, fans would just have to wait a tad bit longer to see him in the cage.
None of this was lost on Cruz. In the fight week festivities he managed to turn more than a few fans’ faces pale with his Willy Wonka inspired entrance to the open workouts. It was an opportunity for Cruz to poke fun at the very thing that had sidelined him for years, the injuries that plagued him for so long that we were all forced to wonder not when he would come back, but if.
Cruz did more than just assuage our collective fears for his fragile limbs last Sunday, he completely obliterated them. Utilizing the skills that made him a three-weight champion in the first place, Cruz danced and swayed his way to a split decision win over T.J. Dillashaw with more effortlessness than anyone thought possible.
Though they were certainly out there, few outside of Cruz’ home gym were picking the former champion. While I’m certainly no virtuoso when it comes to picking fights, I too had penciled T.J. Dillashaw in as the winner, even going so far as to think he’d knock Cruz out at some point. And, really, could you blame me for picking otherwise? Dillashaw has looked excellent over the course of his title reign, short though it may have been. He was the first person to slay the “monster” that was Renan Barao, and did so with relative ease.
It’s part of what earned him the moniker “Killashaw” in the first place; buzzsaw like performances over world champions that had looked invincible until they were locked in a cage with Tyler Jeffrey. It’s also why Cruz’ performance was all the more impressive.
Fans and media members alike were genuinely concerned for Cruz’ wellbeing in his first comeback fight. Even after dismantling top-five ranked Takeya Mizugaki in under 70 seconds, folks were wondering how the man with a cadaver’s ACL in his leg would fare against the champ. Their fears weren’t unfounded either. Since late 2011, Cruz has undergone three separate ACL surgeries, along with a torn groin that had to be reassembled.
Through months of physical therapy and troubling pictures of just how emaciated his injured leg was, Cruz was resolute in his belief that he would be back. Age was on his side, he quipped. He had nothing to do but rest, heal, train where his body allowed him to, and get damn good at talking in front of a camera, all while the bantamweight division was racing by.
On that note, it’s worth pointing out that Cruz never actually lost the UFC belt he earned after demolishing Scott Jorgenson in his final WEC performance. Like Jose Aldo, Cruz was the only bantamweight champion the UFC had ever known. That’s not to say he was robbed of his belt; the UFC made Renan Barao live with the “interim” title attached to his title for nearly two years while they held their breath for an eventual Cruz return.
But they did eventually take the belt, and though he handled it with great aplomb, that had to sting.
Instead of shrinking into himself, though, or ballooning up to another weight class through stress eating, Cruz did Cruz. He stayed loose, he adapted, he learned, and perhaps most importantly, he never stopped working. He knew he’d have his chance, whether it was against Faber, Barao, or eventually T.J. Dillashaw, Cruz knew he’d be back in there. While those from the outside lobbied to give him a “warm-up” fight before the title, less as a way to earn his way back but more to see what his body actually still had in it, Cruz insisted he was up to the challenge.
We’ve come full circle now. The most dominant WEC bantamweight champion is now the undisputed UFC champion, again. Whether or not his fights bore you, of if you even agree with the decision that gave him the strap back, you have to applaud Cruz. He’s done what no one else in the modern era of mixed martial arts has, and potentially cemented himself as one of the greatest lighter weight fighters of all time.
Cruz is back.
Main Photo
