Dominick Cruz makes incredible return, reclaims UFC championship
This is the kind of thing that deserves more than a championship belt. What Dominick Cruz did Sunday in Boston in claiming the UFC bantamweight title from T.J. Dillashaw in a classic five-round match at TD Garden is something that should not easily be forgotten.
It's only January, but it might be hard for anyone to top this for Sports Illustrated's prestigious Sportsman of the Year Award.
Cruz won a split decision Sunday after fighting just one time, for one minute, one second, in the previous four-plus years. In the last 1,570 days since defeating the great Demetrious Johnson on Oct. 1, 2011, Cruz has had three surgeries to repair anterior cruciate ligament injuries in his knees and suffered a torn groin.
Though he'd never admit it, there was a very strong likelihood that he'd never be able to fight again after the second or third of those injuries. And he made himself into one of mixed martial arts' best analysts, landing a job with Fox Sports and explaining the sport brilliantly.
That one day will become his full-time job, but he's got a lot of fighting ahead of him.
"Honestly, nobody's retiring me except for me," Cruz said in exultation in the cage after he claimed the win by scores of 48-47, 49-46 and 46-49. "I've been through too much."
What the scores were is really academic because of the historic nature of what happened in the cage on Sunday. Think of an athlete at the top of his or her sport who was away for more than four years like Cruz who returned without a tune-up and claimed the title. This is a guy who relies on his lateral movement and in-and-out ability and he suffered three knee injuries. And then he fought Sunday feeling the affects of plantar fasciitis.
This is almost unprecedented at the highest level of professional sports for an athlete to be gone for as long as Cruz was because of injuries to come back and perform the way he did.
Judge Dave Ginsberg had it 48-47 for Cruz, giving him the first three rounds and Dillashaw the last two. That is exactly the way Yahoo Sports scored it. Tony Weeks gave Cruz a 49-46 win, scoring Rounds 2 through 5 for him. Sal D'Amato had Dillashaw, giving Dillashaw the edge in Rounds 1, 3, 4 and 5.
Dillashaw is one of the three or four best fighters in the world, and he put on a remarkable effort. But Cruz was there step for step with him in an exciting, taut, thrillling battle that could have gone either way.
Undoubtedly, they'll see each other again at some point, whether in an immediate rematch or down the line. There, Dillashaw may get his revenge. He thought he won the fight, and he could have had a point. Several of the rounds were razor close, particularly the first.
"I’m very disappointed," Dillashaw said. "I thought I had the fight. I was the aggressor, I pushed the pace and I feel like the last two rounds I won pretty decisively. I felt I won the fight, I want to do it again. Props to Dominick. I missed some shots and it was my fault for not following them up."
That's the way Cruz fights. He makes you think there is an opening, and you react. He'll slip this way or that, move in or out, and leave you overextended. He'll rip you with a few counter punches and slide away.
Dillashaw became flat-footed and firing hard shots at Cruz in the third round, as it seemed that Cruz's movement frustrated him. When he got on his toes later in the fight, he was more successful.
But Cruz took him down three times, the first three times in his UFC career that Dillashaw had been taken down.
"The biggest idea of this fight was the takedown," Cruz said on the Fox Sports 1 post-fight show. "I had to make sure I took that away from him. He threw a lot of kicks, and anybody who throws a lot of kicks, I'm going to make you pay for them."
Given the stakes, it was one of the more memorable UFC bouts in quite a long while. It was a man who literally was pulled off the scrap heap and returned as if he'd never been away.
This was Willis Reed, with a torn thigh muscle, taking a shot and coming out and being the key player in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, lifting the New York Knicks to the world title over the Los Angeles Lakers. This was Jack Youngblood playing Super Bowl XIV for the Los Angeles Rams against the Pittsburgh Steelers on a broken leg.
In a way, it was more than that because of Cruz's time away from the sport. Not only did he have extraordinary physical hurdles to overcome, but mental challenges that were equally as big.
This was an all-timer for Dominick Cruz.
If you recorded it, don't delete this one from the DVR. Whenever you're down and thinking you can't do something, watch Cruz win this fight.
That's the kind of moment it was in Boston on Sunday. It was one for the history books.
