Dominick Cruz may have had doubts about retiring, but his body eventually made the decision for him.
The two-time UFC bantamweight champion and future Hall of Fame inductee recently called it a career, signaling the end of an incredible 20-year that was beset by injuries in its latter stages. Cruz’s announcement forced him out of a potential retirement bout against Rob Font, which was to take place at UFC Seattle on Feb. 22.
He appeared on The Anik & Florian Podcast to detail the events leading up to his 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 intended to modify his training for the Font fight to ease the stress on his body and reduce the chance of injuring his shoulder again. Despite taking precautions, Cruz still ended up getting injured while drilling a familiar wrestling technique.
“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....
Dominick Cruz details career-ending injury: ‘The pain was excruciating’
UFC legend Dominick Cruz knew it was time to call it quits when it became impossible to deal with a persistent shoulder injury.