Dominick Cruz stars in ‘The Card That Played Out Perfectly’

Through all the gossip and storylines, the thing that made UFC 178 so compelling was that it was going to tell the truth about people. It was where a lot of fun speculation was going to crystallize into something like fact.

Dustin Poirier was either going to prove Conor McGregor a fraud, or act as exhibitive proof that he’s the real deal. Cat Zingano was either going to show up like a husk of her No. 1 contender self after the injuries and emotional tolls, or she was going to reinforce herself as a viable challenge to Ronda Rousey. Eddie Alvarez was either going to show the world that he’s always a top-five talent, or that the UFC is a different animal altogether from what Saturday night’s broadcasters referred to as “Other Promotion.”

And then there was Dominick Cruz, who was returning after three years on the frontlines of an internal battlefield that we could scarcely fathom. How would he look, nearly 1,100 days later, against Takeya Mizugaki?

Heading into the bout, the idea that Cruz would make it to fight night was in itself an abstract one after those years of bait-and-switch. He was supposed to face Renan Barao back in February after two ACL procedures, but then tore a groin, adding to the skepticism. Yet he did make it. It felt real when the pay-per-view broadcast showed him warming up in the back. It got more real when Jay-Z’s voice declared, “Please allow me to re-introduce myself” into the PA for his walkout.

And if Cruz was haunted by banana peels on the walk, he didn’t show it. He was announced as a “former champion” during the introductions, but it felt more like a “returning champion,” because he never ceded his belt in the cage. It was taken by them bad breaks, boys, and the relentless passage of time.

So what did he do after so many physical and psychological crap hands? He exceeded the wildest expectations.

Cruz unleashed the three years of tension he had pulled back on the bowstring over 61 seconds of demolition work. He deked, feinted, exploded for the takedown, then slammed home a series of rights on Mizugaki, whose wits parted him like music notes as the referee Chris Tognoni took his time in intervening. Cruz said afterwards he was unconscious as Mizugaki, just throwing coup de grâces in the blackness of the moment, just happy to “hit something again.”

Next thing he knew, Joe Rogan had a microphone in his face expressing the world’s own wow. For anybody still on the fence about joining the UFC 178 PPV party, Cruz was just the right kind of aperitif. 

And on a night where just about everything went perfectly for the UFC in the realm of expanded possibility, Cruz stole the show. Here was a one-time pound-for-pound champion that was slowly deleted from the conversation through a merciless spell of bad luck. If he didn’t finish fights back in 2011 when he was wearing the belt, the new Cruz does. Mizugaki has been finished once since 2007, and that was to Cruz’s old nemesis Urijah Faber at WEC 52.

And speaking of Faber, the first thing Cruz did was throw the entire lot of Sacramento’s finest under the bus by referring to them as “Alpha Fails.” If Cruz was possessed during his onslaught of Mizugaki, he recovered his bearings moments later to play the fight game the way it should be played.

He called his next shot.

Now Cruz re-enters a picture that was getting on in mysterious ways without him. Barao had his brief run as the bantamweight champion before T.J. Dillashaw took his belt at UFC 173. The rematch was scotched when Barao had a bad weight cut at UFC 177, and he wasn’t going to get that shot again. With Raphael Assuncao slated to fight Bryan Caraway in early October, Cruz slid back into the pole position by reminding everyone, with unmistakable emphasis, that it’s his division.

That it’s always been his division.

That everyone else was masquerading while he was away.

That Assuncao is a mile for the sun, and Faber is still on the decks, and Barao shouldn’t have blown his inheritance, and that Dillashaw is operating on borrowed time.

According to Dana White, Cruz and Dillashaw will be the next title fight, and what Saturday night did was make that the biggest bantamweight title bout in the promotion’s history. Why? Because Cruz is in a position to do his own justice. And because both are defending the belt.

For a card booked on a premise of revelations, in which McGregor legitimized his top five space, and Zingano made her case for a January title fight with Rousey, and Cerrone set himself up to make it 5-0 in 2015, Cruz was the biggest reveal of all.

It wasn’t that he returned so much as he’s back. Dominick Cruz is back. And suddenly the bantamweight division begins to revolve around him again.

Through all the gossip and storylines, the thing that made UFC 178 so compelling was that it was going to tell the truth about people. It was where a lot of fun speculation was going to crystallize into something like fact.

Dustin Poirier was either going to prove Conor McGregor a fraud, or act as exhibitive proof that he’s the real deal. Cat Zingano was either going to show up like a husk of her No. 1 contender self after the injuries and emotional tolls, or she was going to reinforce herself as a viable challenge to Ronda Rousey. Eddie Alvarez was either going to show the world that he’s always a top-five talent, or that the UFC is a different animal altogether from what Saturday night’s broadcasters referred to as “Other Promotion.”

And then there was Dominick Cruz, who was returning after three years on the frontlines of an internal battlefield that we could scarcely fathom. How would he look, nearly 1,100 days later, against Takeya Mizugaki?

Heading into the bout, the idea that Cruz would make it to fight night was in itself an abstract one after those years of bait-and-switch. He was supposed to face Renan Barao back in February after two ACL procedures, but then tore a groin, adding to the skepticism. Yet he did make it. It felt real when the pay-per-view broadcast showed him warming up in the back. It got more real when Jay-Z’s voice declared, “Please allow me to re-introduce myself” into the PA for his walkout.

And if Cruz was haunted by banana peels on the walk, he didn’t show it. He was announced as a “former champion” during the introductions, but it felt more like a “returning champion,” because he never ceded his belt in the cage. It was taken by them bad breaks, boys, and the relentless passage of time.

So what did he do after so many physical and psychological crap hands? He exceeded the wildest expectations.

Cruz unleashed the three years of tension he had pulled back on the bowstring over 61 seconds of demolition work. He deked, feinted, exploded for the takedown, then slammed home a series of rights on Mizugaki, whose wits parted him like music notes as the referee Chris Tognoni took his time in intervening. Cruz said afterwards he was unconscious as Mizugaki, just throwing coup de grâces in the blackness of the moment, just happy to “hit something again.”

Next thing he knew, Joe Rogan had a microphone in his face expressing the world’s own wow. For anybody still on the fence about joining the UFC 178 PPV party, Cruz was just the right kind of aperitif. 

And on a night where just about everything went perfectly for the UFC in the realm of expanded possibility, Cruz stole the show. Here was a one-time pound-for-pound champion that was slowly deleted from the conversation through a merciless spell of bad luck. If he didn’t finish fights back in 2011 when he was wearing the belt, the new Cruz does. Mizugaki has been finished once since 2007, and that was to Cruz’s old nemesis Urijah Faber at WEC 52.

And speaking of Faber, the first thing Cruz did was throw the entire lot of Sacramento’s finest under the bus by referring to them as “Alpha Fails.” If Cruz was possessed during his onslaught of Mizugaki, he recovered his bearings moments later to play the fight game the way it should be played.

He called his next shot.

Now Cruz re-enters a picture that was getting on in mysterious ways without him. Barao had his brief run as the bantamweight champion before T.J. Dillashaw took his belt at UFC 173. The rematch was scotched when Barao had a bad weight cut at UFC 177, and he wasn’t going to get that shot again. With Raphael Assuncao slated to fight Bryan Caraway in early October, Cruz slid back into the pole position by reminding everyone, with unmistakable emphasis, that it’s his division.

That it’s always been his division.

That everyone else was masquerading while he was away.

That Assuncao is a mile for the sun, and Faber is still on the decks, and Barao shouldn’t have blown his inheritance, and that Dillashaw is operating on borrowed time.

According to Dana White, Cruz and Dillashaw will be the next title fight, and what Saturday night did was make that the biggest bantamweight title bout in the promotion’s history. Why? Because Cruz is in a position to do his own justice. And because both are defending the belt.

For a card booked on a premise of revelations, in which McGregor legitimized his top five space, and Zingano made her case for a January title fight with Rousey, and Cerrone set himself up to make it 5-0 in 2015, Cruz was the biggest reveal of all.

It wasn’t that he returned so much as he’s back. Dominick Cruz is back. And suddenly the bantamweight division begins to revolve around him again.