(“What’s your name, kid-ACK! Is this photo made from shards of broken glass or something! So much blood! SO MUCH BLOOD!!” Photo via Getty)
I know what you’re thinking. Just like me, you woke up this morning, immediately opened up r/MMA, and saw the “Dominick Cruz has a fight booked!” thread. This lead you to a tweet from “The Dominator” himself, which read:
NOTHING has made me more excited in a long time than hearing a fight date from @seanshelby. Ask him tho-cuz I cnt release it.
#comingsoon
Upon reading this, you started scouring the internet and/or harassing Sean Shelby to learn the details of Cruz’s fight, which eventually led you to this ESPN article claiming that Cruz had been booked against Takeya Mizugaki at UFC 178.
This news likely filled you with joy, the kind of sweet, overwhelming joy that all but disabled your ability to think logically. Which is why I’m here to rain on your parade, to piss in your oatmeal. To tell you that Mr. Cruz is setting you up, is setting us all up, for an inevitable downfall. Our hopes of a Dominick Cruz comeback are about to be dashed, so please, let’s all just calm the f*ck down and treat this fight booking with as much trepidation as humanly possible.
It has been three years since we last saw Cruz compete in the octagon. Three years. Over that period of time, Cruz has been subjected to countless knee surgeries, reinjuries, failed cadaver ligament transplants, and more days spent laid up watching Bar Rescue marathons than he’d probably care to admit (#buttfunnel). Yet not even the world-renowned motivation skills of Jon Taffer have been able to whip Cruz into his old fighting form.
Let us not forget that we’ve been fooled before. Cruz was set to finally defend his title against interim champ Renan Barao at UFC 169 back in February. Remember that? “His knee is fine” we were told. “He’s in the best shape of his life.” And to be fair, Cruz’s knee did hold up. But where the knee is strong, the groin often falters. I believe that’s Plato.
Despite having some of the best footwork in all of MMA, Dominick Cruz was apparently cursed with the legs of an 80 year-old coma patient by the man upstairs, which is why we simply must resist the temptation to start losing our sh*t about his possible return. Because if he isn’t taken out by some freak injury prior to the Mizugaki fight, he surely will be before we’re ever treated to Cruz vs. Faber III, or Cruz vs. Barao, or Cruz vs. Dillashaw. And don’t get me wrong, I’d like nothing more than to see Cruz return to form. But I’ve been burned before, Nation. We all have.
Resist the temptation to hope, Tater Nation. Because hope can drive a MMA fan insane. It’s got no use in our sport, and you all better get used to that idea. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope is a dangerous thing…