If Dominick Cruz’s defense and durability are on the decline, it could be a tough night against Marlon Vera
In some ways, Dominick Cruz was ahead of the game during the early portion of his career. His constant movement and timely wrestling made him very difficult to hit, and he was able to dominate the bantamweight division despite missing huge portions of his prime due to injury. While he comes into this fight off back-to-back wins, there is reason to believe the rest of the division has caught up to Cruz.
Through his first 14 fights in the UFC/WEC, Cruz absorbed only 2.15 significant strikes per minute. That is a very respectable right for a fighter who spends a lot of time striking at range. If he had that strike absorption rate today, he would be tied with Leon Edwards for the 13th best among ranked UFC fighters.
Unfortunately for Cruz, he has not displayed that level of defense in his last three fights. In fact, his last three fights against Pedro Munhoz (4.93), Casey Kenney (4.93) and Henry Cejudo (5.32) represent his three worst strike absorption performances of his entire UFC/WEC career. Prior to this three-fight stretch, the only fighter to come close was TJ Dillashaw who landed 4.36 significant strikes per minute against Cruz in their 2016 title fight.
Dillashaw only accomplished this by attempting a whopping 430 significant strikes in the 25-minute fight. Of the 175 currently ranked UFC fighters, only four other competitors have attempted this many significant strikes in a fight: Rob Font, Colby Covington, Cory Sandhagen and Max Holloway (three times).
Limiting an opponent’s volume is a skill and tactic practiced by some of the top fighters in the sport. While Cruz was not really able to slow down a prolific striker like Dillashaw, he has mostly prevented his opponents from throwing large volumes of significant strike attempts through his first 14 fights. However, once again, this was not the case against Munoz and Kenney.
The good news for Cruz here is that Marlon Vera is not really a volume striker. For his 19 fight UFC career, he has attempted only 8.35 significant strikes per minute. On the other hand, he has shown he can run it up as he has attempted over 10 significant strikes per minute in eight of his 19 fights.
However, Vera appears to be one of the fighters that is hard to accurately portray with fight stats. He lands 4.33 significant strikes per minute, absorbs 4.99 per minute and therefore has a -0.66 striking differential. That measure ranks 165th out of the 175 currently ranked UFC fighters. However, it is hard to argue with his success.
Take for example his last fight against Font. Vera was outlanded 271 to 159 on significant strikes over the course of the 25-minute fight. At the same time, he landed knockdowns in three of the rounds and clearly got the better of the exchanges on the way to a decision victory. On that night, the “stats are stupid” crowd was out in force even though I basically highlighted that very scenario in my stupid stats-based preview of the contest…
This is an extreme example, but Vera has had success while being outlanded during his UFC career. He has been outlanded in 10 of his 19 UFC fights, but he has gone 5-5 in these fights.
As you can see, a big element of Vera’s ability to win while being outlanded is his finishing ability. In fact, he is only 3-6 in fights that have gone to the judges in the UFC, and he has won 10 fights by stoppage.
Cruz has been stopped exactly twice in his entire MMA career. He submitted against Urijah Faber in his WEC debut in 2007, and Cejudo finished him with strikes at UFC 249 in 2020. Despite this durability, there is some reason to believe Vera might have success with power striking. Cruz has only been dropped four times in his UFC/WEC career, but all four of those knockdowns came in his last four fights. Over the stretch, he has allowed his opponents to average 0.92 knockdowns per 15 minutes of fight time. There are currently only three ranked fighters with a knockdown against rate worse than 0.92: Chris Daukaus (1.34), Andre Muniz (1.59) and Michael Chandler (1.60).
While durability might be a budding issue for Cruz, he will likely be able to fall back on his wrestling. Despite once referring to “Greco trips” on a UFC broadcast, Cruz has always been a student of the wrestling game and a stealthy good takedown artist. He times his attempts quite well and mixes up his finishes. For his UFC/WEC career, he has landed 2.88 takedowns per 15 minutes of fight time, which ranks 27th among ranked UFC fighters and is only slightly behind UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman (3.00).
One would expect Cruz’s speed and ability to take punishment to decline as he ages. He is not only 36 years old, but he has also dealt with multiple serious injuries that could have ended his career. At his peak, Cruz would likely be able to outpoint Vera over the course of a 25-minute fight, and the fight stats certainly support that possibility. However, if his defense and durability are in decline, Vera certainly has the skill set to take advantage and score a big victory.