Former two-time UFC men’s bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz is set to take on Rob Font at UFC Seattle on February 22.
Cruz appeared on Good Guy, Bad Guy with Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen on January 9, where he talked about his upcoming fight. Cormier asked Cruz if the fight with Font will be his last.
“For me, it is,” Cruz said. “(It’s) not because of my mentality, not because of my skillset. Yeah, I lost my last fight, but I was in that fight every minute of the fight. When I got finished, I was going for the kill, which got me hurt. It wasn’t one of those situations where I was bowing out of the fight. It was that I was in the fight trying to kill the guy, and I hurt myself, and that led to the finish eventually. I looked at that fight. I go, ‘OK, don’t be too harsh on yourself. This is part of the game. You get hit. You get caught. These things happen.’”
Quite honestly, Cruz doesn’t sound completely convinced or committed to the clash with Font being his swan song. During his answer, he repeatedly mentioned details from his KO loss to Marlon Vera in August 2022, but not in a manner that suggests he’s finished.
“But I was in the fight,” Cruz said. “I wasn’t slower. I wasn’t looking behind a step. I wasn’t not choosing the good techniques. Those are all things I add to my mindset before moving into this last nine months as well. The skills are still there. It’s just a matter of all the injuries and stuff. Can I keep them together to get through the camp? The camp is the hard part. We all know that. It’s not really the fight.”
You can see the entire interview and episode of Good Guy, Bad Guy in the video below.
We’ll find out shortly after the fight if Cruz is leaning toward hanging up the gloves. At 40, the road ahead is shorter than the one behind him. As a fighter who has battled multiple injuries throughout his career, it remains to be seen how long he can compete at a high level.
Next Up For the UFC
The UFC returns on Saturday, January 11, with a card at the Apex in Las Vegas. Mackenzie Dern will take on Amanda Ribas in a rematch of their 2019 meeting. Ribas won the first fight, and Dern will be looking for revenge.
Here is a look at the entire card.
UFC Vegas 101 Main Card
- Mackenzie Dern vs. Amanda Ribas
- Santiago Ponzinibbio vs. Carlston Harris
- César Almeida vs. Abdul Razak Alhassan
- Chris Curtis vs. Roman Kopylov
- Christian Rodriguez vs. Austin Bashi
- Punahele Soriano vs. Uroš Medić
UFC Vegas 101 Preliminary Card
- Jose Johnson vs. Felipe Bunes
- Marco Tulio vs. Ihor Potieria
- Thiago Moisés vs. Trey Ogden
- Preston Parsons vs. Jacobe Smith
- Ernesta Kareckaitė vs. Nicolle Caliari
- Magomed Gadzhiyasulov vs. Bruno Lopes
- Fatima Kline vs. Victoria Dudakova
- Nurullo Aliev vs. Joe Salecki
