Cruz: The Best is Yet to Come

With Dominick Cruz’s victory over Mighty Mouse Johnson last Saturday, it’s safe to say we’re out of the revolving-door championship era in the UFC. Cruz, Aldo, GSP, Anderson Silva and Bones Jones all seem to have death grips on their belts. The 155 pound division is a little up in the air---we’ll need to wait and see the Edgar-Maynard fight first. One could argue the winner of Velasquez v dos Santos will be HW champ for some time.

Each of these champions brings a different game to the octagon: Cruz has stellar wresting along with extremely unorthodox movement in the stand-up; Aldo brings ridiculous speed and power in his brutally accurate Muay Thai, along with a black belt in BJJ; GSP utilizes perhaps the best jab in the UFC, along with the best applied wrestling, even though he never wrestled in high school or university; Anderson Silva’s world class Muay Thai and long limbs make him the most dangerous opponent in the sport; Bones Jones’s creative grappling, rooted in Greco-Roman wrestling, and his unequaled reach, make him the UFC’s official Rubik’s Cube.

It is easy to forget that martial arts are arts. There is nothing absolutely new under the sun when it comes to art, whether you’re talking about movies, painting, writing or fighting. The essence of an art is to take what’s preceded and to make it one’s own. This is the creed of our best champions today. There is nothing cookie-cutter about these fighters. This is what Bruce Lee taught with his JKD: use what works for you and your body type. When Edgar twice beats formerly unbeatable (at 155) BJ Penn, when Cruz defends his title against two brutally fast and efficient challengers, when Anderson Silva seems to goad Chael Sonnen into a late fifth round submission, when GSP jabs the face off Josh Koscheck, and when Bones Jones utterly annihilates fighters like Shogun Rua and Rampage Jackson, it warms the blood, it inspires.

In five or ten years, once the new breed of fighter emerges en masse, the top 5 or ten fighters in each division will be like Cruz, Aldo, GSP, Anderson Silva and Bones Jones. In spite of the champions we have now, the best is yet to come.

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By: Renko Styranka
ProFighting-fans.com Staff Writer