It’s been a little while since Dominick Cruz participated in a UFC fight week. And that might just be the understatement of the month, at least in MMA. Maybe the year.
Cruz (22-2) last competed in 2016, when he lost the UFC’s 135lb title in an Upset of the Year candidate against Cody Garbrandt. Injuries, as they so often have in Cruz’s career, plagued him in the years to come.
Yet this weekend at UFC 249, Dominick Cruz makes his return, challenging Henry Cejudo and looking to become a three-time UFC bantamweight champion in the process.
He’s also impressed with the sort of Fight Week he’s had thus far in his return. “We have our own sauna, we have our own rooms. We’re treated like royalty. I feel like this is how it should be every fight, not just corona.”
Speaking to media outlets including Cageside Press at the UFC 249 virtual media day on Thursday, Cruz suggested that “everybody’s nicer. Everybody’s more attentive, everybody’s more kind, everybody’s in pure service to us. We’re cutting weight, and we’re dealing with a pandemic at the same time. It’s like the pandemic adds a little sprinkle of ‘we feel sorry for you’ almost. But it’s like, man, it should be this way all the time. It really should be. This is true professionalism from the UFC currently. I’ve never felt a fight week like this in my life.”
There’s been the swab test, of course. “They pretty much get right to it, make sure we’re all corona-free, that’s the best way to put it.”
“It’s nice to be respected,” Cruz would later add, suggesting fighters weren’t being treated any better, or worse, than those at home. At least in terms of being confined to their rooms.
The vastly different environment has made the former champ “thankful for food and water,” he went on to say. Which likely had something to do with his weight cut. Ready to drink up an entire lake, Cruz also added that “it’s a reality check. I feel like everybody in the world should have to go through this one time in their life, so you can be thankful for the little things.”
Dominick Cruz returns to action against Henry Cejudo in the co-main event of UFC 249 this Saturday, May 9 in Jacksonville, Florida. The event takes place live on PPV, following televised and online prelims on ESPN and ESPN+ (TSN in Canada).
