Dominick Cruz Surgery Fails, Out An Additional 6-9 Months

[No More Sorrow]

Dominick Cruz underwent another major knee surgery this past week, and it’ll likely further delay his return to the octagon. Recent reports has trainer Eric Del Fierro saying

“Cruz’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) was replaced after his body rejected one from a cadaver.â€￾


Estimating another six to nine months before his return



Urijah Faber and Cruz were coaches on The Ultimate Fighter 14 and expected to meet in July of last year. Cruz tore the ACL and the bout was called off. Due to the long recovery time and the nature of the injury, an interim title between Faber and Renan Barao took place and Barao came out the victor during UFC 149.

Barao recently mentioned facing off with Michael McDonald early 2013 despite his original statement of waiting for Cruz to return before fighting again.

The UFC is left with the decision to either strip Cruz and make Barao the full champion, or allow Cruz to continue recovering with the belt and have Barao defend his interim bout.

At this point i think it'd be best if they just named Barao the official champion.

 

[Embrace Thou Maryse]

Barao has to fight now...surely.

 

[Slim]

Let Barao fight and if he wins... he becomes the full champion. Cause otherwise this is gonna be a really long wait. So looks like we will finally have an Interim champion fight.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Well it was confirmed last night Baro is going to defend his title against Michael McDonald, likely for UFC 158.

 

[Slim]

Good. Tired of all these interim champions winning and then sitting out for like a whole year and do nothing.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Yeah the UFC really needs to put in a clause in a fighters contract if they ever become an Interim Champ or something. Other wise the whole point of those Interim belts are completely useless.

 

[The Cork]

Sucks for Cruz to be out two years, lucky he's reasonably young and in a poor weight class so could always still come back strong. You saw what happened to Frank Mir after his motorbike accident though, he was never really the same fighter again after 2 years out the game.

Barao vs McDonald will be a fun fight but I'll reiterate that nobody will ever beat Barao until he retires.

 

[Troy]

Shame that Cruz is out for basically another year. Will be tough to come back from two years on the sidelines but hopefully he can come back strong and get back to the level that he was at before the injury. Glad that UFC are making Barao fight rather than allowing him to continue to delay when he is healthy.