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By Joe Fernandez

Those who have endured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee reconstruction know all about the tedious hours of rubber bands and rehab, ice machines, sleepless nights and the detriment of an idle body—and many times, an idle mind.

But for UFC Bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, the third time was a good-luck charm.

“It sounds weird, but it got easier and easier each time with each injury,” Cruz said. “I really believe that the reason I went through that was to force me to deal with my life outside of fighting. I kind of used fighting as an outlet. Fighting was my drug. It was my escape from reality.”

Cruz (21-1), who will fight longtime rival Urijah Faber (33-8) in a highly anticipated trilogy match at UFC 199 in Los Angeles on June 4, originally tore the ACL in his left knee and had surgery in 2012. In December of that year, the San Diego fighter required another operation because his body rejected the cadaver allograft.

“When it all got taken away the first time, I hit my lows, I hit my depression,” Cruz said. "When I tore it the second time, I started to understand that I needed to accept the injury.”

After a groin tear forced him to vacate his belt, he eventually returned to the Octagon for the first time in nearly three years. Free and focused, Cruz earned a ferocious first-round knockout over Takeya Mizugaki.

“It finally hit me that this approach is not working,” Cruz reflected on his mindset right after his groin injury. “I let go, and said, 'Just be done with fighting and enjoy your life without it.' And when I did that, I realized it’s hard for me to enjoy my life without fighting. That means I needed fighting to love myself, and that’s just a bad way to view myself. If I couldn’t focus on my body, I knew I had to focus on my mind.”

After a grueling comeback that culminated with Cruz set to face champion TJ Dillashaw and reclaim what was taken away from him, another obstacle held him back.

It was another ACL tear — this time, his right knee.

“I put that same mentality into this last ACL recovery and that was the fastest recovery I ever had,” said Cruz, who chose to go with the patellar tendon graft for his last two ACL surgeries. “It was because I had it figured out from the first three injuries I faced. Once I went in there and fought with that level of peace, it let out a completely different level of competition in my body because my mind was free.”

Back with his belt after completing arguably the greatest comeback in UFC history, he inked a fight with a familiar foe. In 2007, Faber successfully defended his World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight championship with a first-round submission over the then 22-year-old Cruz. Four years later, “The Dominator” avenged his only professional loss and successfully defended his belt with a unanimous-decision win at UFC 132 against “The California Kid.” Throughout the years, all this familiarity bred contempt.

“Faber has been trying to deface me since 2007,” he added. “I get why he’s doing it, we’re fighting. This guy doesn’t understand how I’m coming back and doing all of this; and all this time while this guy is competing, he still could not touch the belt.”

Faber has been firing away, too. In a recent interview on "The Herd With Colin Cowherd," he made comments alleging possible performance-enhancing-drug use by Cruz and his former teammate, Dillashaw.

“He made an assessment with no facts whatsoever,” Cruz said. “What really shows the true colors of Faber through that situation, he blamed his former teammate before he ever said anything to me. This is a guy he brought up from high school and mentored, and now he attacks him with these accusations. What does that say about him?"

“The reason he did that was because I was telling Faber what TJ said about him to me before we fought. He said, 'He’s old, he’s like a dinosaur, [I’ve] been beating him up for years and Faber has no chance against [me].' Once I told Faber that, then Faber said ‘Oh yeah?' Well this is what he did.’”

The estranged duo of Faber and Dillashaw parted ways when the latter left his longtime mentor’s Sacramento-based Team Alpha Male to train with striking coach Duane Ludwig. Cruz mentioned that he saw the split coming for a long time.

“I knew that TJ was getting ready to leave,” Cruz added. “I knew that Faber was jealous of TJ getting that belt; and I knew that Faber didn’t want to face TJ Dillashaw because it would ruin the name that Faber made for himself by losing to the guy he mentored. He knows he can’t beat TJ. He moved up to 145 pounds to dodge that whole thing instead of building up the division he belonged in. He ran from the guy with the belt and I knew that would start breaking up their relationship because Faber wants you to do well, he just doesn’t want you to do better than him.”