Dominic Cruise and Urijah Faber have been feuding for more than nine years, but now that they’re both retired, they can look back fondly on the heated trilogy that defined much of their careers.
The two first met in March 2007 at WEC Round 26, when Faber, then 27, defended his featherweight title against 22-year-old Cruz. In their first encounter, Faber won by submission in just 98 seconds, starting a feud that lasted until 2017, but by then both fighters had established themselves as legends.
If not for Faber’s fast finish, that might not have happened.
“Whether you want to admit it or not, you were a rocket to my career early on,” Cruise said. love and war Podcast to guest Favor. “That loss, losing to you, lit a fire under my ass.”
Cruz may be underestimating the impact the loss had on him.
After this loss, Cruz went undefeated until 2016, going on a 13-fight winning streak, including two UFC Championship defenses against Faber, a rematch and a trilogy bout at 135 pounds. Along the way, the rivals had many heated exchanges and were more than happy to shoot each other in interviews. While Cruz often appeared calm and calculating, Faber was the image of California cool.
According to Mr. Cruz, the public perception was no coincidence, as he genuinely resented Mr. Faber’s behavior due to his difficult upbringing. Cruz explained that his father was a methamphetamine addict and was frequently away from the family, meaning that the younger Cruz had the greatest responsibility in caring for his mother, grandmother, and younger brother. The trauma from these experiences informed Cruz’s martial arts career and how he approaches his opponents.
“I didn’t know it, but I had many toxic traits in my relationship with my father,” Cruz said. “I became very codependent, and a lot of weird habits came out, and love wasn’t safe for me. It was never safe. So I didn’t allow myself to say that, and the moment I started feeling it, I got angrier and more angry and locked myself deeper into conflict and shut you out even more. There were no loving people around me, or anyone who wanted a relationship or depth with me.”
“Then, as I get older and I reach a certain point, I realize that’s the juice of life. That’s the core of it all, that loving thing that you can share with people, connect with, and build win-win relationships. I was being taken advantage of and didn’t realize it. I put my family first and got them out of the gutter. So I was taken advantage of in a loving mindset, but out of anger and that’s the guy you met. You just met the guy.” I got mad at you because you seemed to understand that on the other side, except for the guy who had to kick his family out. ”
Mr. Faber expressed great respect and gratitude to Mr. Cruz for sharing his story. In comparison, Faber said that although his parents divorced when he was young, he was well supported by his parents, which certainly contributed to his outwardly cheerful demeanor.
When he finally found his MMA foil in Cruz, he welcomed the challenge.
“First of all, we didn’t have a lot of enemies, so it was fun to have enemies,” Faber said. “So I was like, ‘I have an enemy. Fuck it, let’s get away with this.'” So I enjoyed that whole process. I’ve always had a lot of respect for him, but after hearing this story, I respect him even more. …I remember you talking about sometimes going for a run in the morning. I can’t remember what it was, but on certain days or days of the week, I would do this intense run at 5 or 6 in the morning or something. I remember thinking at the time that this guy was going to be in trouble. Because I knew you were on the track, doing the right thing and having a championship mentality. I saw it and knew it was coming. ”
The rematch between Cruz and Faber took place at UFC 132 after the promotion absorbed a WEC roster that included fighters in the featherweight and bantamweight divisions. Cruz entered the bout as the defending champion, defeating Faber by unanimous decision after five thrilling rounds. The two faced off again at UFC 199 in June 2016, with Cruz winning his second reign as bantamweight champion, but once again Cruz remained in the fight via unanimous decision.
There was always a lot of trash talk leading up to their matches, much of it personal, but Cruise and Faber chalked it up to their perceived differences and their desire to continue selling a feud in which millions of dollars were invested.
“I grew up in scarcity,” Cruz says. “Looking back, I really thought that. As I grew up and got older, I learned about abundance thinking and started looking for ways to make my own life less painful and different frames of thought. And I always noticed about you, you always looked on the bright side. You were always like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s okay.'” I remember being like, “Fuck you, brother, that’s not okay.” I’m going to punch your son of a bitch, dude. I hated you for that shit. I just couldn’t understand it. I just didn’t know.
“I’m always grateful when I look back because I had to go through certain things. I was always in over my head. I wasn’t always against it, so I accepted what you said and said, OK, this is working for him, so he What was I doing? I could take these things that are making him successful and add them to myself. I thought, “Now I’m better than him,” so if I can also add things that are working for him, maybe I can double down. That’s always been the case. So, while I appreciate the little moments you shared, I always felt like you had an ulterior motive and that you would use it against me in your next talk. ”
Faber chuckled at the thought of wearing Cruz’s skin, even though he didn’t necessarily plan on doing so.
“I remember you saying to me, ‘He’s using that against me,'” Faber said. “You said it once, too, because when we had to work together in that environment for two or three days, we got along really well. We went back to a relationship where we kind of hated each other and you were like, ‘He’s not all that he seems.’ And I think that’s what you were talking about. Like, we’re kind of friends now and now he’s talking trash again and we got right back together.”
“We had to do it because we were really trying to kill each other. It was real. We were really trying to kill each other.”
Cruz and Faber had a lot of laughs during their conversation, with Cruz joking that Faber had been sending teammates, including Joseph Benavidez and Scott Jorgensen, what Cruz called his “minions,” before their second fight. But nothing was more interesting than the first time these two 20-somethings met in a WEC cage. The two 20-somethings had no idea what was about to happen and apparently had no clue how to present themselves on TV.
“If you watch our first game, you said this once, your hair looked like Lloyd Christmas and I looked like I just stepped out of the back of a van. It was like I was living the van life,” Faber said. “We didn’t know people were going to watch this. Millions of people were going back and watching these fights.”
“I had no idea,” Cruz said. “I wore pajama pants when I went out.”
“We didn’t know, wow, this was going to be televised and remembered as a historic game,” Faber said.
“I was shocked,” Cruz said. “That fight with the camera pointed at my face was literally shocking.”