Issue 087

April 2012

UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz just cannot keep still, whether he’s inside or outside the Octagon.

I was not expecting classical music. This was, after all, the ringback tone coming from UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz’s phone number. ‘The Dominator,’ the man with the skittish, herky-jerky fight style who regularly blazes through 25 hard minutes in the Octagon and then somehow looks as if he’s only taken a leisurely Sunday stroll. The 26-year-old who owns convincing victories over elite competition like Joseph Benavidez, Brian Bowles, Urijah Faber, Demetrious Johnson and Scott Jorgensen, among others – is this really the same man who programs classical music for his callers’ entertainment?

“Actually, no,” Cruz tells Fighters Only with a laugh. “I’m in between ringback tones right now. I just got a new phone and haven’t picked one yet.” Admittedly, there was an unexpected sigh of relief on my end of the line, especially when I found out Cruz was just exiting his prized Nissan Skyline – one seriously fast car – as he prepared to chat with me. I mean, certainly this whirling dervish of a fighting specimen can’t just mosey through life, right? Shouldn’t one be able to assume his in-cage demeanor would have at least some relation to his persona outside of the Octagon?

“I’m kind of like that in that I usually have a real hard time sitting still,” Cruz says. “I’m always having to be into something. I’m always having to be busy with something. I’m always thinking about something. I’m always trying to hustle or work something. I guess in a sense, it kind of represents my style because I never really sit still. I’m never just chilling. I’m always doing something, and I’ve always got my brain working on something. I guess that’s a similarity.”

Cruz’s unique approach to fighting has become his trademark during 10 fights under the UFC and WEC banners. Rife with unmatched head movement, swift shuffling of the feet and leaping punches that seem to come from every possible angle, Cruz presents opponents with a unique test – one that is almost impossible to precisely match in training. And it is all by design, says the champ.

“Honestly, 100% of what I do is a product of working with Eric Del Fierro,” Cruz says of his head trainer at California’s Alliance MMA camp. “The way he holds pads is an MMA style, it’s not a boxing style. And it’s not kickboxing and it’s not Muay Thai. It’s an MMA-based style of holding pads. On top of that, my whole outlook on striking from day one, when I started, is to try and figure out a different way to fight. 

“MMA is a different sport, and everybody fights the same, and I had to figure out a way to win and not be like everybody else. I mean, if you’re like everybody else, then what is there really to distinguish between winning and losing if everybody is doing the exact same thing? My outlook on it was: do something different. Find something different to focus on besides just hitting pads and shooting and doing the normal stuff. I just kind of took a different outside approach to the way I strike and the way that I wanted to learn how to strike, and I just looked for different ways to punch people from different positions. 

“What it all came down to was my feet had to move better in order for me to punch people in the positions I wanted to. So I focused tons on footwork, tons on head movement, tons on angles to set up punches from awkward, weird positions and let the guys set themselves up to get hit. That’s basically what ended up happening over time. The style progressed, and it’s turned into what it is now.”

Cruz grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and athletics was always a part of his life. Perhaps surprisingly, though, he admits that the speed and agility he demonstrates now wasn’t ever really a trait on which he could rely. “I played every sport you could play,” Cruz says. “I just loved sports in general. So I was playing basketball, football, baseball, soccer, wrestling. You name it, I played it. But it was the complete opposite. I’ve always had a lot of endurance, but I wasn’t very quick or fast. I was quick on angles and sharp turns, but I was never like a sprinter. 

“I was always very slow at sprinting, and I still am, to be honest. But I’ve always had a lot of endurance and a good work ethic. Speed was definitely not one of my attributes, necessarily, except in wrestling. I was a lighter guy, so I guess I was kind of quick. But everybody’s quick when you’re 119lb.”

It was only after high school that Cruz believes he began to mature as an athlete, quickly packing on 20lb in the summer following his graduation and the build-up to his first professional fight. “When I was in high school, I wasn’t like I am now,” Cruz says. “People see the way I fight, see my style, but I didn’t really grow into a man until I was 22 or 23. I was a late bloomer. 

“I actually changed into a completely different human being right after high school. Once I started fighting, my body changed. I started growing into the things that I had done to it when I was younger, and it all kind of came together in my MMA career.”

After building up a 9-0 record competing on the regional stage, Cruz received a call-up to the WEC in March 2007, where he would face the man who ultimately would become his nemesis: Urijah Faber. ‘The California Kid’ needed just 98 seconds to earn a submission win in a featherweight title fight, after which Cruz promptly packed up and moved to San Diego, where Del Fierro began to guide him.

“Eric kind of saw the way I did things,” Cruz says. “I did a lot of things naturally really well, but then they needed to be fine-tuned. They needed to be sharpened so that I wasn’t as open in certain situations and that I could set up other things from those positions. He just kind of fine-tuned the punching and striking from the weird positions to get a little more out of it and fix it. Over time, it’s just turned into what it is. There’s no other way to explain it. He doesn’t really change anybody in our gym. He looks at what you do with your own body and your own strengths, and he wires a style around what you do well already.”

Cruz says that style was built on his notions of needing a unique approach to competition, as well as an unrivaled work ethic and dedication to practicing each individual technique until it was etched into his body’s muscle memory.

“A lot of people want to know, ‘How do you do this? Why do you do this?’” Cruz says. “And really, 100% of it is just drilling. I drill so much. I drill just footwork. I drill just angles – specific angles, specific footwork for punches that my opponent is going to throw at me, for kicks my opponents throw at me, for takedowns they go for.

“I haven’t developed a name for it or anything. My thing is just to make a mark and influence and make it something that people can bite off of and hopefully take and use for MMA forever. That’s my thing, just trying to make something where I’m the first time they’ve seen it, and they want to bite off of it and use it and make it something for the future.”

Following his 2007 loss to Faber, Cruz fought once more at 145lb before dropping to his current home in the bantamweight division. He’s since rattled off nine-straight wins in the weight class and is now widely considered among the top-10 pound-for-pound fighters in the world. Last July, he was able to avenge his loss to Faber, earning a unanimous-decision win in a ‘Fight of the Year’ candidate at UFC 132.

Of course, the pair’s well-documented rivalry is far from over. The two will soon take over coaching duties on the 15th season of The Ultimate Fighter, the first edition of the series to air on FX and feature live fights throughout the season. “I expect it to be pretty intense,” Cruz admits. “The next three months are going to be a learning experience in the sense of dealing with the cameras and coaching somebody on live television. It’s the first time anybody has ever had to deal with it. 

“On top of that, it’s going to be a different type of competition. We’re basically combining two competitions in one. It’s a competition, about me and Faber fighting at the end of the season, and it’s a competition about getting these guys as good as possible and having your team win the competition before the competition. Everything is just kind of stacked up into one. It makes for a very intense surrounding, and it’s all live. The fans are going to get the best of it.”

Cruz promises to reveal many of his specialized training methods in the show, exposing his team to the exact regimen he uses on a daily basis. “That’s something that everybody’s going to get to see on The Ultimate Fighter, exactly what I do,” Cruz says. “All the drills that I do, my guys are going to be doing with me. I lead by example, so everything I do, my guys are going to be doing. I’m going to be able to kind of show the world different techniques on how to do things striking-wise, how to set up takedowns, how to work jiu-jitsu – just my whole style, in general, will kind of be picked apart. I can show the public and show everybody kind of the way that I’ve trained myself to fight the way I fight.”

Cruz will also get a shot at clinching the rubber match in the high-profile three-fight series, as he and Faber will face off at the conclusion of the season. Naturally, Cruz’s UFC title will be at stake, but a lifetime of bragging rights seems to be the real prize.

“A lot has changed over the past few years in the sense of the way that Faber and I know each other, really,” Cruz says. “We just know each other a little bit better. It doesn’t mean that we like each other anymore. It just means we know more about each other. We’re both adults. We’re both professionals. We’re not going to spout off and go crazy around each other – yet I’m not going to say it won’t ever happen on the show.

“The bottom line is, we’ve been through a lot in each other’s careers. We’ve had a lot to do with each other’s careers, so you can’t really dodge each other. At the same time, you’ve got to deal with each other at all these press conferences and all this stuff. It’s just part of it. You always get the same questions over and over, but you can only answer them so many ways. Yes, we see each other all the time. Yes, we’re professionals. We don’t hate each other, but we don’t like each other, and we’re going to beat the crap out of each other at the end of the season. There’s really nothing else you can say.”

In Cruz’s mind, it really is that simple. He’s a fighter that simply loves to fight, and he’s discovered a way to compete that gives opponents absolute fits. In relatively quick fashion, he’s elevated himself from absolute unknown to dominant UFC champion, and he doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. There is an internal drive – a combustible engine that fuels Cruz’s frantic pace and equally rapid rise to prominence.

“You can’t ever be satisfied,” he adds. “I never am. People say, ‘You’re already UFC champion.’ I always say, ‘I’ve got something to prove,’ and I really had to sit and think about why I say that. Really, the bottom line is I’m always trying to prove something to myself. 

“I feel like the biggest fight for me in this whole situation is satisfying myself. Anything that I can be critiqued on, I’ve already critiqued myself. Once I fight that battle with my own brain, I feel like I’m unstoppable. 

“Once I won a title, I wanted to win another one. I’ve never defended anything. The goals never stop because after you win something, your brain automatically resets and understands you need to do more. The second you’re satisfied is the second you fall off, so I’m never satisfied. I always have something to prove, and I probably have to say the number-one person I have to prove it to is myself.”

‘Sport is all about individuals and how they handle the pressure’

After competing in a variety of sports throughout his childhood, Dominick Cruz remains a fan of professional sports of all kinds – not just fighting. “I love watching sports in general,” Cruz says. “I love watching basketball. I like watching the Miami Heat and I like watching the Chicago Bulls right now too. Really, I like watching all the NFL games, but I don’t necessarily have specific teams that I like.”

But Cruz, ever the analyst and a truly self-aware fighter, doesn’t really concern himself with the ‘X’s and ‘O’s of team sports. Even the final score is often overlooked as he observes team skirmishes. Instead, Cruz prefers to focus on how each individual athlete performs against specific mental and physical tests. 

“I just like watching athletes, especially because I’m in a sport where you’re a professional athlete fighting for your own path, for lack of a better term,” Cruz says. “That’s kind of how I watch basketball and how I watch football. Even though they’re team sports, I like watching individuals and how they handle the pressure.”

In addition to benefitting his own career, Cruz believes this study pattern will help him in his upcoming coaching duties opposite Urijah Faber in The Ultimate Fighter. “In every single one of these team sports, they have that one superstar that has to carry his team.

Whether it’s Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, Lebron James and the Miami Heat, Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls, they all have that star player that needs to carry the team and bring them all together. I feel like that’s exactly what I’m going to be doing on The Ultimate Fighter, and that’s exactly what I do with my team at Alliance MMA. I like to watch these guys and critique them – see how they handle the pressure, see what they do to get through the pressure and just watch them perform.”

Life in the fast lane

Four years ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of the West Coast regional MMA scene that knew about the skills and potential of Dominick Cruz. Two years ago, Cruz was starting to open a few eyes but was just ready to begin his championship run for World Extreme Cagefighting, a promotion that consistently boasted incredible fights but struggled to gain a broad following. However, with two successful defenses of the UFC’s bantamweight title under his belt and a coaching slot on The Ultimate Fighter forthcoming, Cruz’s popularity has grown tremendously.

In some ways (and as Mark Hominick so eloquently described himself following his UFC 128 clash with Jose Aldo), Cruz is a six-year overnight sensation. “The best way I can explain it to anybody who probably can’t understand the thoughts that are going through my head is if you’ve seen the movie Limitless,” Cruz says, referring to the 2011 sci-fi flick. 

“That’s the best way I can explain it. There’s an average guy, and he’s just going through his life working a day-to-day job, just grinding, trying to get this book deal – just trying to make it in life, the same thing everybody else in this work is trying to do, right? That’s how I feel. I’m just like everybody else in this world. The difference is I’ve been given the right position by God and the right people have been put in my life for me to be blessed to be in the position I’m in. 

“I’ve worked very hard, but I’m a normal person like everybody else. Then all of a sudden, all these things get thrown on my plate, and you’re learning how to deal with it step by step. It’s a learning process.”

The hate issue

Unless you happen to hail from Urijah Faber’s Team Alpha Male, most people find Dominick Cruz among the most polite and respectful fighters in the UFC today. Of course, that doesn’t mean the bantamweight champ doesn’t have his pet peeves. “Laziness drives me insane,” Cruz says. “If you’re going to mop a mat and then you only mop half the mat and walk away, it makes me want to grab the mop and beat you with it. If you’re going to take the time to mop, you might as well finish the whole thing.”

Cruz says he uses this disdain for cutting corners as a guiding principle in his everyday routines. “If you’re going to take the time to run, you might as well sprint it and get the best workout you can out of it. If you’re going to take the time to shadowbox, you might as well shadowbox at 110% so you get the full amount of work out of it. If you’re going shoot a double, you better commit to it. If you’re going to throw a punch, you better commit to it to make sure you’re going to land it. Everything I do, I like to make sure I do it 100%. If you’re going to do it halfway, I’m going to chew you on it.”