Issue 125

February 2015

FO analyzes the fight everyone is talking about. Team Alpha Male’s bantamweight champion ruled in 2014, but will their gym rival’s return see the championship change hands once again?

The last time Dominick Cruz defended the UFC bantamweight title he never actually lost in the cage, his opponent was the now-flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson. The UFC was also still more than a year away from having a women’s division and ‘Rampage’ Jackson had just challenged Jon Jones for the light heavyweight belt.

Almost three years later, after recovering from a serious knee injury, then a torn groin that forced him out of a February 2014 title unification fight with interim champion Renan Barao, ‘The Dominator’ finally returned at UFC 178 in September. No longer the champion, he faced top contender Takeya Mizugaki.  

The Japanese fighter was TKO’d for only the second time in his career, and in just 61 seconds. Cruz (20-1) looked better than ever. He took Mizugaki down and battered him with lefts and rights to score a stunning and uncommonly quick victory. Asked what his future plans were, Cruz announced he was ready to “beat up some Alpha fails.”

And, just like that, Cruz was back to his old rivalry with Urijah Faber and the rest of Team Alpha Male. The Alliance MMA standout was due to fight Faber before he tore his ACL in the first place, but he’s no longer the target, as ‘The California Kid’ twice lost title fights to Barao in Cruz’s absence, before teammate TJ Dillashaw’s (11-2) upset of the long-unbeaten Brazilian to take the belt.

Cruz lost to Faber by submission way back in 2007, but he’s been almost flawless since. He outclassed his bitter rival over five rounds in their July 2011 rematch and twice outpointed another Team Alpha Male standout, Joseph Benavidez, during his run to the top of the 135lb class. Dillashaw and his championship belt are next on the list.

Going into the Barao fight, Dillashaw was a huge underdog. The TUF 14 finalist only made his professional debut in 2010 after a successful but not world-beating college wrestling career. He was the favorite over the smaller, faster John Dodson in the TUF finale, but was knocked out in less than two minutes. Dillashaw struggled with Dodson’s speed. Cruz is, or at least was, also extremely fast.

However, Dillashaw is one of the most improved, and now very best, fighters in the UFC. He has shown huge improvements in his striking under coach Duane Ludwig since 2013. Once recognized as just a wrestler, Dillashaw finished both his 2014 UFC title fights, against Barao and late, late replacement Joe Soto, via fifth-round TKO’s through head kick and punches.  

Dillashaw is dangerous, skilled and has tremendous stamina. At 28, the reigning champion is a similar age to Cruz but has less top-flight fight experience, but the big questions about this fight revolve around the challenger.

How will Cruz’s twice-reconstructed knee hold up? How much has the movement and elusiveness he used so brilliantly as WEC and UFC champion been affected by the injury and by the passage of time?  

As a 25-year-old, Cruz won and twice defended the WEC bantamweight title in a single year. Now, nearing 30, even without the injuries, his speed and movement could be diminished. Not just through injury, he’s missed a hefty chunk of his prime athletic years, though there wasn’t much evidence of that in the Mizugaki fight.

While he was inactive, Dillashaw was a busy man. He fought three times in 2012 and again in 2013 while consistently improving. Cruz’s win over Mizugaki was also his first stoppage of that kind since 2008. Will he be that aggressive against Dillashaw, or will he simply move and counter?

Dillashaw still has his doubters. Barao looked to be half-beaten before the fight – thoroughly drained from an excessive weight cut. And while Soto is a former Bellator featherweight champion, he was promoted from the prelims when Barao passed out cutting weight for the rematch. Ordinarily he would have been no one’s idea of a UFC title challenger.  

Yet Soto gutted it out for almost five rounds against someone he’d trained with just two months earlier and fought on a day’s notice. Dillashaw dominated but the circumstances ensured he wouldn’t get much credit for that. Beating Cruz though, would be a very different matter.