When former UFC Bantamweight Champion Dominick Cruz sat down with welterweight contender Daniel Rodriguez on episode 38 of Love & War with Dominick Cruz, the conversation took an honest turn toward mental health, revealing just how commonly athletes turn to anti-depressants during their careers.
Cruz opened up about a period following multiple ACL surgeries that left him unable to train.
“I had to get on anti-depressants at a period of time for like a year because I was just so lost just not having training,” he said. “I was all fat and out of shape and just not doing anything.”
For Cruz, the relationship between competing and mental wellbeing became starkly clear when he was forced off the mat. Without the gym, he described feeling like a loose cannon, unable to manage relationships or find purpose.
The medication helped fill a void that the sport had always occupied. “I noticed how depressed I got without being able to do the martial arts,” he explained.
What makes his account particularly revealing is how quickly things changed once a match was booked.
“When I booked the match I was able to get off the anti-depressants right away,” Cruz said. “And this is how I know like wow, this is saving my life. I need this sport. I need to be hit. I need to hit people. I need to hurt people and I need people to hurt me. And it wipes out whatever I got going on inside of my head.”
Rodriguez connected deeply with that experience. After getting out of a stint in jail, he described breaking down multiple times as he struggled to regain his physical form. He also acknowledged facing depression while incarcerated, particularly during the final months when release seemed uncertain.
“I’ve battled with depression, bro,” he said. “I did hit like a little depressing mode. And I always had to get myself up off my bunk every single day.”
Both men circled back to the same conclusion: training functions as a kind of self-prescribed therapy. Cruz noted that without martial arts, he had no real tools for managing daily life.
Rodriguez put it plainly: “I always find myself in the gym.”
The conversation underscores a pattern that extends well beyond these two athletes. When the sport is taken away, whether by injury, incarceration, or circumstance, the mental cost can be significant enough to require clinical intervention.
