Dana White thinks that if Cruz is set back with another bad injury, he should consider retiring

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19-1 Dominick Cruz has been the face of the bantamweight division in the UFC and WEC for the better part of half a decade now, with his only loss coming from a Urijah Faber guillotine for the WEC featherweight title back in 2007. When he made the transition to the UFC, the then 25-year-old continued on his path of domination, defeating Urijah Faber to retain the bantamweight belt at UFC 132 and dominating Mighty Mouse Johnson at UFC Live to retain as well. Then, disaster struck as Cruz coached The Ultimate Fighter opposite Faber in a highly publicized rubber match scenario – he tore his ACL while training with his team, and we havent seen him since.

That was at the beginning of 2012. Then, one year later, his body rejected the cadaver ACL, putting the champ under the knife once more, and again – out for another year. At this point, Cruz may return sometime around the fall of 2013, leaving him out of competition for nearly two years. In MMA terms that might as well be a lifetime. Renan Barao is now the interim bantamweight champ, and looks horrifyingly good in the Octagon, and will be defending his title from another scary up and comer in Michael McDonald this Saturday at UFC on Fuel TV 7.

So what happens if Cruz injures himself again? Well, Dana White thinks it may be time to hang up the gloves.

“If he starts training again and gets another injury that’s going to take him out for a year – and I hate to even say this about the kid since he’s a really good kid – but he should seriously probably look at retiring,” White said. “But I’m not taking something like [the title] from somebody.

“The way that it works in the fight business is you beat the man who beat the man. Obviously, though, if he had to retire, then [the interim titleholder] would automatically become the champion.”

Hopefully Cruz makes it back to a title-unification fight with Barao or McDonald, this fall, the last thing we want to see is one of the best champions of the last few years call it quits due to a bum knee.