UFC Icon Dominick Cruz Pays Respect to His Biggest Rival: You Were the Rocket Ship for My Career
After building one of the most intense rivalries in UFC history, Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber are looking back on their iconic feud.
Officially announcing his retirement from mixed martial arts in 2025, Cruz launched a brand-new podcast called Love & War.
On the inaugural episode, ‘The Dominator’ welcomed Faber, using the former WEC champion’s appearance on the show as an opportunity not only to bury the hatchet, but to credit ‘The California Kid’ with helping to advance Cruz’s own career.
“Whether I wanted to do, admit it or not, you were pretty much the rocket ship for my career early on,” Cruz told Faber. “The loss really… I appreciate that. It lit a fire under my ass losing to you. And so it’s only fair, you know, maybe we get you on the first podcast and here we are opening up with you.
“Yeah, we’re winning. We’re winning together now, which is wild. It’s a win-win. And that’s something I’ve been really focused on at this stage in my life now is how instead of making it like wrong and right, instead of just always trying to win, win-win, how do I create a win-win for the people around me? And that’s something that’s really important to me. And that’s where the love aspect of this whole thing comes from.”
Dominick Cruz beat Faber in Back-to-back bouts
Cruz and Faber first crossed paths under the WEC banner all the way back in 2007. On that night, Faber entered the bout as the WEC’s reigning featherweight champion while Cruz was an unbeaten 9-0.
Faber went on to submit Cruz just 98 seconds into the opening round.
The bad blood between the two came to a boiling point three years later when Cruz dropped down to bantamweight, becoming the first-ever 135-pound UFC champion thanks to the promotion’s merger with the WEC. Shortly after, Faber followed Cruz down a weight class, setting the stage for a heated rematch at UFC 132.
This time, Cruz would get his revenge, defeating Faber via unanimous decision in the first-ever UFC bantamweight title fight.
They finally completed their trilogy in 2016 when Cruz delivered a repeat performance, besting Faber on the scorecards at UFC 199.
