A living legend of MMA, the two-time former UFC bantamweight champion, Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz, has finally hung up his gloves. It was, of course, only a matter of time – his time at the top of the division was long over by the time he came back for his last couple of fights. Father Time is always and forever undefeated.

For me, personally, it is sad to see perhaps the most unorthodox and brilliant tactician I have ever seen in the Octagon, calling it a day. You have to understand something about martial arts, and in particular the footwork required to be a really skilled stand-up striker, to really appreciate just how WEIRD Cruz’s footwork actually is:

The constant shifting and movement was amazing to watch. Cruz would literally go up against some of the best strikers in the business with his hands down – the single biggest mistake you can make in the sport – and make them hit air. He was a completely non-linear fighter, who understood (and understands – which is why he is such a great colour commentator) the fight game at a totally cerebral level.

Indeed, if you listen to him talk about how he fights and thinks, you realise that he has an incredibly rare set of skills, that only the truly greatest fighters have. He has an almost preternatural ability to think on his feet, understand how fights work, and break down his opponents:

The problem Cruz faced, throughout his life and career, was that he kept writing cheques his body could not cash, so to speak. The man had THE worst luck with injuries that I think I have ever seen. Two torn ACLs – the first of which kept him sidelined for three years. A broken hand. A torn groin. Several shoulder injuries. Plantar fasciitis. Repeated injuries to his knees even after all the surgeries.

For a man with such a movement-heavy style, those injuries were absolutely devastating. They slowed him down and removed his single biggest weapon – his ability to shift seamlessly from making his opponents hit air, to pounding on them and then taking them down:

And that was before we get to the fact that he simply took an entire MMA stable apart. I talk, of course, about Cruz’s legendary rivalry with Team Alpha Male – or, as he liked to call them, Team Alpha Fail:

Cruz fought repeatedly against the best that team had to offer, and he beat them all – which is why that team was able to assemble enough footage and experience in fighting him, to train their very best young talent into the perfect vehicle to defeat him:

The irony, of course, is that Garbrandt himself turned out to be basically a one-trick pony. He could never figure out how to replicate that success against Cruz, versus anyone else, for the simple reason that Cruz’s style required an extremely specific set of attributes to defeat him.

The beauty and horror of MMA is that every problem ultimately has a solution, and every style ultimately has a counter. With Cruz’s style, the key was to exploit specific habits he had, wearing him down and limiting his movement, neutralising his excellent wrestling, and then picking him apart on the feet. And that is a big part of how Cody “No Love” Garbrandt beat the man who had destroyed his entire team:

But Garbrandt himself had no real depth to his style either. If you watch his fight against T. J. Dillashaw – a former Team Alpha Male leader who sparked off his own extremely bitter rivalry with his own team after he left it to join Dwayne Ludwig’s gym – you will see just how one-dimensional Garbrandt’s style really was. The moment he got frustrated, he would simply resort to putting his head down and throwing big hooks without any style or finesse.

And, once the bantamweight division in the UFC figured out how to handle Garbrandt’s power, he simply could not get back into championship contention.

Cruz, by contrast, had the ability to analyse his own failures and shortcomings, and he figured out how to make specific adjustments, even at a relatively advanced age against much younger competitors in the division, and even after coming back form debilitating injuries.

And that is why he was able to win the bantamweight strap TWICE. His comeback fight against Mizugaki was incredible, and that razor-thin win against Dillashaw that got him back his title was something else to behold.

He adjusted and changed again after his loss to Garbrandt and the subsequent injuries, but by that point, he was simply too old for the sport.

Things had moved and evolved, as they always do in MMA. The fighting styles had changed, the fighters were younger and stronger, and the techniques and emphases had shifted.

But there will never be anyone quite like Dominick Cruz.

To me, he will always be the bantamweight GOAT. He was the absolute KING of trash talk – but he backed it up with results. He had the ability to shred his opponents simply through his unique way of breaking them down – one moment, he was analysing their fighting techniques in the most clinical, cerebral, calmly detached way imaginable, and the next, he was ROASTING them to their faces, making them feel about two inches tall.

And his footwork… that was always something special.

I have tried, very clumsily and poorly, to replicate a few of his shifts, feints, and resets while practising my striking in front of the heavy bag. It is nearly impossible to do, because your physiology determines your fighting style. Cruz’s natural physical ability, combined with his experience and background in wrestling, and his small size – his walking weight is a full forty pounds lighter than mine, and I am hardly any kind of athlete – determined his fighting style. Bigger and less athletically gifted men cannot replicate it.

Interestingly, though, most smaller men cannot replicate it either. The only one who came close, was Dillashaw, and we now know he was taking PEDs for much of his career.

To me, Cruz is a one-of-a-kind fighter – rather like The Buakawminator, a man who transcended his sport and became something far better and greater than “just” a fighter. I will miss his presence in the cage, and I will always respect his incredible mental toughness, his grit, his resilience, and his ability to reinvent himself over and over again.

That, to me, is the essence of a warrior – a CHAMPION. And that is precisely what Dominick “The Dominator” Cruz is.