Weight Class: Bantamweight At long last the wait is over. Assuming Dominick Cruz avoids any sort of fluke injury in the coming week, he should make it to the octagon for his bout with Takeya Mizugaki, marking his first fight since he beat current flyweight champion Demitrious Johnson in Mighty Mouse's final bantamweight bout on October 1st, 2011 at UFC on Versus 6. What has happened since then? Well, the UFC is no longer on Versus, Versus is no longer a channel (it rebranded as the NBC Sports Network, which carries the WSOF), Mighty Mouse has fought seven times since then, and become the first and only UFC flyweight champion, Anderson Silva lost the middleweight title and broke his leg, Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva retired, Strikeforce held their final event (they were purchased by the UFC prior to Cruz's last bout), Jon Jones became the most dominant light heavyweight champion in UFC history, and Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos started and finished a title fight trilogy (with Cain fighting Bigfoot Silva twice in that time as well). That's a lot of MMA history really. Time flows differently in the sport, and time at the top is often limited to just a few years. Has the sport passed Cruz (191) by? He's only 29, and thus still at his supposed peak, but Mizugaki (2072) will be a tough test, as the Japanese fighter is on a five fight win streak. Here's the key: Mizugaki rarely finishes. He's a decision fighter, with fourteen decisions to six finishes. Thus Cruz can rest a little easy not having to worry as much about a knockout or sub as he would against, say, old rival Urijah Faber. That said, Mizugaki is still a great fighter, so Cruz will need to be able to keep up. A strong with for Cruz here gets him a title shot in a thin bantamweight division where Faber won't fight team mate and champion T.J. Dillashaw, but he needs to focus on the fight at hand. He has a chance, and we'll call Cruz by split decision - but it could very easily go the other way.
Primarily covering the sport of MMA from Ontario, Canada, Jay Anderson has been writing for various publications covering sports, technology, and pop culture since 2001. Jay holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Guelph, and a Certificate in Leadership Skills from Humber College.
