Dominick Cruz to Carla Esparza: Welcome to the big leagues

When Joanna Jedrzejczyk beat the championship out of Carla Esparza, former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz recognized something few could – the extra weight of being champion that Esparza had borne.

You’re shocked with the pressure, said Cruz, as transcribed by Steven Marrocco for MMAjunkie. It will flip your head around and bring you to reality super-fast when you become a world champion.

“You get a bigger job. You basically become the manager of your division. Are you up for that challenge?”

From this, she’s going to grow and become a better fighter. Don’t count her out. But she does need to figure out a way to become more mentally tough through those situations.

You don’t realize that everything is not at your fingertips like you think is going to happen when you’re a world champion. Are you ready to be putting in double as much work as everybody else because you’re the champion?

These are all things that hit you right when you become the champion, and you don’t realize, holy cow, it’s harder to be a champion than become one. That’s what people don’t get.

Esparza said post fight that she didn’t feel like herself vs. Jedrzejczyk.

I understand what she’s saying, but she needs to understand: Welcome to the big leagues, said Cruz.

Then there is UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, who does more media shoots and interviews than any other champion in the league, and shot multiple Hollywood movies in the last year.

Rousey, you’ll never hear her mention one thing of her responsibilities, because it comes with the territory, said Cruz. When you start saying those things, you just weren’t ready for the challenge and that’s why you lost the position. So we’ll see. Maybe the next person that’s in that position can handle the challenge better and move forward.