UFC
Dominick Cruz on UFC 178 return: "I needed to do this for me. Not for my fans, my mom or my family... just for me."
Sep 22, 2014 - 1:40:13 PM Dominick Cruz on UFC 178 return: "I needed to do this for me. Not for my fans, my mom or my family... just for me."

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Dominick Cruz returns to action on Saturday at UFC 178, nearly three years to the day from his last appearance in the cage.

It's been a long and tumultuous road for the former UFC Bantamweight Champion, and for Cruz, Saturday's fight with Takeya Mizugaki is about more than just getting a win to reestablish himself. This fight is about proving to himself that he can make it back after all he's gone through since October of 2011.

"It feels weird...it really does," Cruz said of these final weeks of preparation in the latest edition of Duane Finley's excellent "The Fighting Life" series at BleacherReport.com. "I've been out for so long and I've turned my brain off to it because I hurt myself because I got back into the gym too soon. I basically had to turn off the mindset of being a pro athlete and change hats. But now, I've put the hat back on I'm back to being a professional athlete again. It feels like getting laid off and then getting your job back. It's a strange feeling and I'm here and ready to go through with it. This is just a different stage."

"Mental toughness is absolutely the best way I can word this," he continued. "I could have stopped this a long time ago and decided to never do this again, but something inside of me said I needed to do this again for myself. I needed to do this for me. Not for my fans, my mom or my family... just for me. I needed to make this happen, go through this fight and get back in there and prove to myself what I'm made of.

"There have been a lot of mental ups and downs I've had to work through and it's one of the toughest things I've ever had to go through in my entire life. No question. But I feel like at the end of it all I will have taken a big step closer to making myself a better person. And that is what I feel we are all here to do."

Penick's Analysis: There's a lot more from Cruz in Finley's feature piece, so make sure to click that link to check out the full profile. With regards to Saturday, this mindset here is precisely why I didn't think a fight with Renan Barao made sense for his return when it was scheduled for earlier this year. It's not that Cruz is incapable of returning to elite form, it's just that he's been out so long, it's not fair to expect him to be at that form immediately. Not only on a physical front, but mentally, as it's clear this is something that's been weighing on him for quite some time. He has to get through Saturday's fight to drop that weight of this three year layoff, and from there he can work on building himself back as the best in the world. It may not take long if he beats Mizugaki soundly, because that could lead to a fight with T.J. Dillashaw right away. We'll find out where he's at on Saturday, and we'll see how far he has to go from there; regardless, the key is getting through this week in Las Vegas, and then he can move on.