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Dominick Cruz Reacts To Sean O'Malley's Title Win, Talks About His Own Future In Fighting

Originally posted on MMA News | By Kyle Dimond | Last updated 8/31/23

With two UFC bantamweight title runs under his belt, Dominick Cruz has been considered to be the best 135-pounder ever for a long time.

Although his career has been largely defined by his injuries that stopped him from realizing his full potential, Cruz is still held up as an all-timer but nowadays, the bantamweight division is looking very different.

At UFC 292, Sean O'Malley produced the best performance of his career to defeat Aljamain Sterling and become the new UFC bantamweight champion.

In an interview on the Anik & Florian podcast, the division's former king gave his thoughts on "Sugar" picking up the mantle, praising the new champion where many have criticized him in the past.

"I love it when you get a guy like that coming in here and shaking things up because you look at him in the Yan fight and it was an extremely competitive fight and that was to me, between him and Vera, Yan, Vera and Aljo are the toughest fights he had and those are all three very tough fights."

"He won two of three of those so O'Malley is as good as everyone wants him to be, he's proven it. He knocked out the champion who was defending, he's got power in his hands and so he can pretty much knock out anyone in the division because he's got that one punch power shot"

Dominick Cruz Provides An Update On His Career Plans Going Forward

Having fought four times in the last three years following his four year hiatus from competition, Cruz's UFC career has been very stop and start throughout the last decade.

Asked by Kenny Florian where he is at right now in his career, Cruz went on to explain the benefits in having people around him that he can trust.

"It's so nice to have leaders. I can't do this by myself because my emotions get pulled into it, my ego gets pulled into it. You have to have an ego in fighting otherwise there's no reason to show up so I have it, I just can't use it everywhere because it doesn't always work to use it."

"That crazy Dom doesn't work everywhere, nobody wants to see that guy so I have to set him aside and that's the guy you usually see on these interviews but the ego guy is who my coach talks to and that's the guy that my coach says 'shut the f*ck up, what are you talking about? what do you mean booking a fight? you haven't hit pads enough you haven't', my coach will tell me when I'm ready and that's one of the blessings I have is not having to make that decision alone."

In the mean time, while he is eager to get back inside the Octagon, Cruz said that his coach has emphasized the importance of patience.

Aiming to recapture his love of training, he also wants to make sure that when he returns, he is fully fit and the only way to do that is to give himself time to go through a full comeback process in the gym.

"I do want to come back and fight, I want my body to work so I'm not coming in there booking a fight hurt, pulling out, pulling all that mess so if it works, it works and I'll be back. If it doesn't, I'll know soon and then we'll know the next move but I am training as you can see. I'm doing everything I can to get everything lined-up because I do want to compete"

Please provide transcription credit with a link to this article if you use any of these quotes.

This article first appeared on MMA News and was syndicated with permission.

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