Dominick Cruz is perhaps the biggest what-if in the history of MMA. It isn’t that the ‘The Dominator’ didn’t achieve much in his fighting days—he did become the UFC’s bantamweight champion and defended his title five times after all. But a host of recurring injuries, which totally derailed his career trajectory time and time again kept him from really reaching his full potential. He could have found his way on the Mt Rushmore of MMA overall, if not for repeated injuries.

But despite being out of action for six years in his prime, which is almost half of his twelve-year UFC stint, ‘The Dominator’ is considered one of the greatest bantamweights of all time We say ‘was’ because the American, of course, finally hung up his gloves earlier this month due to, guess what, another injury which we will discuss in depth further.

And it turns out that not only was he struggling physically, but also mentally despite winning championships. Speaking to Ariel Helwani, the former champ revealed that he was dealing with severe mental health issues going into his 2016 TJ Dillashaw clash for which, he had to take anti-depressants.

“Thank God for the injuries because they threw me into not having the sport where I got to feel how miserable I was and then focus on those things… I was on antidepressants and I was scared to get off of them because I was scared to turn into the crazy person that I was,” he said.

Despite these issues, ‘The Dominator’ managed to beat Dillashaw via a split decision to win back the title, which he went on to defend once more the same year. However, Cruz lost his third fight of 2016 against Cody Garbrandt in what is one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. Cruz didn’t won the title since that loss, and now that he has retired, probably never will. Since injuries have been the most notable part of Cruz’s career, it would perhaps be fitting to take a look at the injury that made him finally call it quits.

Dominick Cruz’s career-ending injury

Dominick Cruz was set to face #9 ranked Rob Font this weekend. However, a shoulder injury yet again forced him to pull out. So severe was this injury that the San Diego native, who is 39, decided to retire. “I set my goal to get through this fight, and I’ll be honest, I was on borrowed time when I booked this fight, but because of the state of my body leading into that… Unfortunately, [my] arm gave out — and it had given out before, but this time it was different,” Cruz told Helwani.

Two weeks ago, the former bantamweight champ dislocated his shoulder for the second time in eight months and described the pain as a 20 on a scale of 1 to 10. This second dislocation was very different from the first one, which had been put back into place by the UFC PI staff in a couple of minutes. But not this time. This time the dislocation was very serious and led to Cruz being rushed to the hospital.

“It was out of place for about an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes, just sitting out of socket. And you kind of find Jesus in a time like that, to be honest.. At the end of the day, when your arm starts turning blue … and you can see that they’re making sure my fingers are still working before they slide it back into place, it’s like, OK, is fighting worth as much as my arm?” Cruz asked rhetorically.

And the answer, of course, was no. The American admitted that he would much rather be able to use his arm for the rest of his life than fight, which he cannot be faulted for. What do you think about Dominick Cruz’s revelations about his mental health issues going into the TJ Dillashaw fight?