Dominick Cruz indifferent about placement on the preliminary portion of the UFC 178 fight card

While Dominick Cruz is indeed a former UFC champion, he is not concerned about being placed on the preliminary portion of the UFC 178 PPV card next month.

The longtime Bantamweight competitor's reasoning is simple: FOX Sports 1 is in an exorbitant amount of homes, while PPV is limited to those who purchase it.

Cruz is also ecstatic about finally returning to the octagon following a near-three year layoff due to multiple knee and leg injuries.

"FS1 is in 90 million households," Cruz told MMAFighting.com's Ariel Helwani via text. "It did 735k viewers on my teammate Ross Pearson's fight. At this point with the last two-plus years off, I'm just pumped to FINALLY be in there fighting again, period."

The last bantamweight champion in WEC history and the first in the UFC, Cruz has been out of action since his final title defence at UFC on Versus 6 in October 2011, where he defeated Demetrious Johnson via unanimous decision.

With just over a month to go until his official octagon return, Cruz is looking forward to proving that he still belongs among the upper echelon of the division. Whether that means headlining a card or being the featured prelim, Cruz is indifferent about that and is simply grateful to be back.

"My team at FOX Sports has been with me through this entire injury, witnessing me go crazy watching each and every fight card," Cruz said. "Now I get to go show them, alongside the rest of the world, how I can fight. It's not a downfall in any way at this point in the fight world to be on prelims anymore with these kind of views that FOX gets. It's my pleasure, and I'm absolutely PUMPED to just compete again!"

Transcription taken from MMAFighting.com.