Jorgensen: Cruz Hasn’t Fought Anyone Like Me

Scott Jorgensen (right) | Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com

“He’s just never faced anybody that’s willing to go in there and do what I’m doing, what I’ve done for the last five fights, which is leave my heart in the cage and win a hard-fought fight,” Jorgensen said during a recent interview on the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “He [fought] Joseph Benavidez, who he’s beaten before, and Joseph’s a little bit smaller, and then he had Brian Bowles quit on him. One, he’ll never get me to quit, and two, I’m not small. I’m big and I’m strong.”

Jorgensen fights Cruz for his title Thursday in Glendale, Ariz., at WEC 53. It’s a shot Jorgensen earned by winning five straight in the promotion. Cruz, however, hasn’t lost since March 2007. In his most recent title defense, he edged a game Joseph Benavidez via split decision with a strategy built on constant movement, speed and point scoring.

“I think speed’s an issue with every fight at [135], but I’ve got guys with faster hands that I train with and I’ve got guys with better foot movement,” Jorgensen said. “I train with Kit Cope. There’s no way Dominick’s striking is better than Kit’s, no matter how Dominick moves.”

In fact, while some appreciate Cruz’s movement in the cage, Jorgensen views it differently.

“Me personally, I feel like Dominick runs a lot,” he said. “He moves a lot to avoid having to stand there and fight. Anybody -- I can run for 25 minutes, you can. The difference with me and the way I fight and the way other people fight him is I’m not going to give him that ability to run, to move like he has. I’m going to take that away from him.”

Cruz has proven to be more than a quick striker who’s hard to hit, though. The first time he fought Benavidez, he used a knee tap takedown to repeatedly ground the fight. Jorgensen, however, dismisses Cruz’s wrestling.

“It’s like me going into a high school wrestling practice,” Jorgensen said. “How am I going to handle a high school wrestler?”

Jorgensen was a three-time PAC-10 champion at Boise State. He still trains with the team and also wrestles with former Greco-Roman world champion Joe Warren. Suffice it to say he does not have a high opinion of Cruz’s wrestling either.

“His wrestling’s just not what everybody thinks it is,” Jorgensen said. “Yeah, he has a knee tap, but he’s also facing guys that don’t necessarily shoot and wrestle the way that I do when I do shoot. There’s a reason that I get in and take guys down: It’s because I’m very fast, explosive and I know what the hell I’m doing when I shoot. It’s not always about blowing through a guy. It’s not always about pinning him up against the cage. There’s a lot of different angles to change and adaptations to make when you want to wrestle. That’s something Dominick never faced.”

Listen to the full interview (beginning at 10:05) with Jorgensen, who also discussed how being comfortable with getting hit helps his wrestling.