Former two-time UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz recently announced his retirement after a 20-year run.
The fighter was set to face Rob Front at UFC Seattle but he had to withdraw from the fight due to a combination of prior and recent injuries. The fighter had a sit down on The Anik & Florian Podcast to discuss his injuries and the situations that led up to his withdrawal and ultimate retirement decision.
“I had one dislocation about eight weeks prior to this recent one that I posted and that one kind of set the stage that I’m on a different kind of timeline than just age, which I didn’t really add to the equation,” Cruz said. “It was more just like I feel good, I’m still fast, all these things. So then your shoulder falls out, and then you’re like, OK, I rehabbed it for six weeks straight, and then I went and sparred with Jeremy Stephens and a few other pro boxers just to see where it was really at after the rehab I had done, and I did really well, I felt really good, nothing messed with me at all.
“After that I booked the fight and then they offered me Rob Font, so that’s why I was like, ‘I should just take it. I’m not going to get in better shape, I feel amazing still now.’ I felt amazing before the second dislocation and that’s why I took the fight. So, sorry Rob Font as well, I respect the guy. He’s done a lot in the sport himself and done a lot of big things, so nobody wants to pull out as a pro fighter because it sets somebody else off, too. It sets the fans off, it sets the fighter off, it’s more than just me when you pull out and that’s why I didn’t want to do it, but I knew I was on borrowed time, to put it quickly.”
Cruz revealed he and his team took precautions to modify his training to prevent further wear and tear on his muscles. Unfortunately for the fighter, these preventive measures did not pay off as the fighter still suffered an injury during his training, which prevented him from having his last stand in the octagon.
“It was a basic thing I’ve done a million times,” Cruz said. “You’re on your back from half guard, you get up on your elbow, and then you reach to a single and you use your elbow to get up. And when you post on the ground like that with somebody on top of your head, it just pretty much shot out the back the second I put my elbow down and went to pull in that single leg. The difference with this one from the first one was the first one was only out for maybe three minutes, it was a nice quick slide back in… that was excruciating pain, but it was so quick.
“Whereas this second one, they went to pull it in, and it did not go back, it just stayed where it was at and all the muscles locked down on top of the nerve and for about an hour and a half, from driving through traffic to the hospital, to getting to the hospital and then needing to get an X-ray-because it’s not like the movies where you just slide a shoulder back in every time, it doesn’t always work that way-so the second time it didn’t work that way.
“When they went to slide it in, it was sitting very particularly, so they had to do an X-ray to see how to pull it back in, what direction to yank your arm when they reset it because if you pinch certain nerves then it can shut the whole arm off and it’s just really damaging,” Cruz said. “So I’m in the hospital for an hour and 15 minutes, my arm starts turning blue and when I see my fingers turning blue and just things being weird and the pain was excruciating, it just gave a different perspective for me.
“I always say I deserve this kind of pain and the reason is because that’s the only way I learn, so this was enough pain to teach me something and get me to kind of say, OK. … This one was a 20 on a scale of 1-10, so it just changed my perspective of where the shoulder’s at because I’d already had tendon damage that had torn, and that’s why the shoulder started coming out because the tendons are no longer connected, so there’s separation and that thing can just fly out. So if it can happen twice within six-to-eight months, that’s when the shoulder just starts working on you after a while if you start learning about the anatomy of the shoulder, which I have at this point.”
Cruz says he is currently still in pain although he may still consider fighting if the price is high enough. For now, the fighter is uncertain of what his future holds but his work with upcoming fighters may push him into becoming a full-time coach.
“I’ve been doing that out here in Mexico City,” Cruz said. “It really bridged me really well being out here with Eric Del Fierro, who’s running this squad out here. There’s 25 South American fighters, and they’re trying to get as many Mexican fighters as they can and training with them over the past year. I’ve learned so much from the young guys, just the hunger in their eyes and how bad they want it, and I can see my young self in them.
“It’s inspiring for me. I realize being here this last year, seeing guys like that keeps me alive. It just keeps me alive, so I’ll be part of that, no question.”
The Dominator’ is widely considered one of the greatest bantamweights in MMA history. Cruz has a 24-4 record and has dominated the UFC 135-pound division for years. Despite dealing with a variety of injuries, he managed to hand fellow legends such as Urijah Faber, T.J. Dillashaw, and Demetrious Johnson losses.
