Dominick Cruz believes he is a much different fighter than the first time he faced Urijah Faber.
We’re a week away from my UFC 132 main event vs. Urijah Faber in Las Vegas and I’m getting my "game face" on. On Monday I fly to Vegas and fight week begins. A lot of people in interviews and on my Twitter and Facebook have been asking if I am more nervous, as this is now a UFC title fight and not a WEC title fight.
Since the WEC folded into the UFC, the division has exploded. The two new UFC divisions -- 135 pounds and 145 pounds -- are both getting a lot more recognition than we were getting even a year ago. When the WEC titles became UFC titles, I was crowned the first UFC bantamweight champion and my fight against Faber is the first ever bantamweight title bout for the UFC.
It’s interesting... all the rituals and training are the same but, at the same time, there is more prestige attached to this fight than any in my career. I’m headlining a UFC -- the first bantamweight to do so in the history of the UFC -- which also features guys who I grew up watching like Wanderlei Silva, Chris Leben and Tito Ortiz. It really is an honour but I have to switch that off and treat it like just another big fight once the gate slams shut.
Another thing fans have been asking is will the UFC Octagon, which is a lot bigger than the blue WEC cage, be a factor in this fight?
Well, it will and it won’t.
I have good defence and am very hard to hit or takedown and obviously in a bigger cage that’s going to be even harder to do. I think a lot of people’s game plan is to try to get me up against the cage and try to head me off. I mean, that’s what I hear from a lot of opponents, and I think the UFC Octagon will make that even harder.
For me offensively, though, I think it will help. I like to dictate the pace and throw a lot of shots. Statistically, I land more shots per fight than I think the vast majority of UFC fighters, and the Octagon will give me more space to use my footwork to put me in positions to land my stuff.
Everyone now knows I am not fond of Faber at all. I don’t wish the guy ill or anything but not liking him too much as a person has definitely helped me in training. It has helped me get up early to work out, with the dieting and the cutting weight, to imagine how good it will be to beat him and get my win back and -- at the same time -- how bad I don’t want him to win again.
But once the fight starts, it’s just another fight. I do a pretty good job of using the fact I don’t like someone to help fuel my training but once the fight starts, switching all that emotion off and just doing what I do without letting emotion get in my way.
If Faber’s expecting me to fight off emotion and be prone to making mistakes, he’s going to be disappointed. Just like he’s going to be in for a shock if he’s made the mistake of thinking I am the same guy he beat back in 2007.
I’m completely different from the guy he fought four years ago. You can look at my last five, six fights, and it is a different fighter each time. I am actually bigger now than I was when I challenged Faber for the 145-pound belt. My walking around weight is about 10 pounds heavier than it was four years ago, but I have learned about dieting and weight cutting since then. I’m totally professional now.
I’ve added so much to my boxing, my kicks, my ground game and my mental game that I am a completely different version of myself than I was when I lost to Faber in a WEC featherweight title fight four years ago. Really, I was rushed into that fight because there weren’t too many other contenders at the time. I was really 18 months off being ready for a title but now I’ve got the belt and no one is taking it from me.
Urijah has a different haircut than he did when we last fought. Other than that, I don’t see how he’s too much different from the last time we fought. He’s facing a completely different person, while I am fighting the same fighter who has been struggling a little bit in his career of late.
Hit me up on Twitter at @TheDomin8r and Facebook me.
Dominick Cruz will defend his bantamweight belt against Urijah Faber at UFC 132 on Saturday, July 2 in Las Vegas. He will blog this week and next for sportsnet.ca ahead of his fight.
UFC 132 will be shown live on pay-per-view at 6 p.m. PT / 9 p.m. ET. Watch t live preliminary fights on Sportsnet starting at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET.