As Dominick Cruz stands on the brink of regaining one world championship he never lost in the Octagon, he still has thoughts about the other one, which has been all but forgotten.

The Alliance MMA fighter, who meets T.J. Dillashaw for the UFC bantamweight title on Sunday night in Boston in the main event of UFC Fight Night 81, was recognized as the UFC's first 135-pound kingpin in Dec. 2010. But his lineal world title stretched back to when he knocked out Brian Bowles in March of that year to claim the World Extreme Cagefighting championship, something which has been reduced to a footnote in mixed martial arts history.

"No one recognizes it," Cruz told MMAFighting.com. "No one remembers it. It's the most annoying thing. The WEC belt was the world title in my weight class."

UFC parent company Zuffa purchased the WEC, which had been a Northern California-based promotion, in Dec. 2006. With no weight classes under 155 pounds in the UFC at the time, with a national TV outlet, and powered by a popular star in then-featherweight champ Urijah Faber, the WEC soon became the place for lighter-weight fighters to earn a living and recognition, and thus the company's belts turned into the de facto world titles at 145 and 135.

"We were the pioneers," said Cruz. "We were the ones who did all the heavy lifting. All those years before Zuffa bought the WEC, smaller fighters who had world class talent had to fight at casinos or overseas or up in weight and make chump change for doing it. The WEC guys were the ones who brought it to the masses and showed what we did was the real deal."

Of course, that's not just pride of someone who once held the company's title talking. The proof lies in the results since the WEC was merged into the UFC. At bantamweight, Cruz and Renan Barao both held UFC gold after competing in the WEC (Dillashaw, for his part, made his pro debut the year WEC went out of business). Demetrious Johnson was successful at 135 in both the UFC and WEC before dropping to 125, where he's now the company's longest-reigning current champion.

Jose Aldo withstood a stampede of lightweights down to featherweight after moving to the UFC and went on to a combined WEC/UFC featherweight title reign lasted six years, one month, and three days. That's the second-longest reign in Zuffa history behind Anderson Silva's seven-year middleweight run. But that's not an official record, as the UFC, while often recognizing combined UFC/WEC/Strikeforce/PRIDE stats in categories like overall victories or most knockouts/submissions in a division, doesn't do the same for combined title reigns or defenses.

And none of this, of course, includes the caliber of fighters at the higher weight classes, like former WEC lightweight champ Benson Henderson, who won the UFC lightweight title and has found a second life at welterweight; Anthony Pettis, who held the WEC lightweight title and then also took UFC gold (beating Henderson for both titles); or former longtime WEC welterweight champ Carlos Condit, who held an interim UFC title and just came one round away on one scorecard from winning the UFC welterweight belt from Robbie Lawler in a classic fight.

"It's all right there in front of you," said Cruz, who went 7-1 in the WEC, including a pair of title defenses. "Look at the results. Look at how many guys have won championships in the UFC. It's been five years since the WEC ended, five years is an eternity in this sport, and we're still at or near the top of our divisions. MMA's the type of sport where you can come up with all sorts of intellectual arguments to put down someone's accomplishments, but there's simply no denying the results when we finally got to the biggest stage."

Of course, it isn't as if validating the WEC's run is anywhere near the top of Cruz's motivations as he gets set to meet Dillashaw for the title in Boston. Anyone who has been following the sport can tell you about Cruz's well-documented travails over the years.

Cruz has fought just once since Oct. 2011, getting stripped of his UFC title after a series of injuries ranging from a torn ACL to a torn groin. After an inspiring win over Takeya Mizugaki at UFC 178, Cruz tore his other knee, leading to another year on the shelf.

At 20-1 overall, Cruz has never lost at 135 pounds. He's been watching Dillashaw, someone who admits has adapted Cruz's style and incorporated into his own, walking around with a belt he never lost.

And as such, Cruz isn't afraid to say he'll take a little bit of that freewheeling, chip-on-their-shoulders, us-against-the-world WEC mentality into the main event in Boston.

"I think the WEC is going to be viewed like a band which made great music but never got super popular," Cruz said. "You know what I mean? There's some really crappy music out there which gets really big and sells millions of records and wins awards, but real music fans know that a good underground band that wasn't as big made better music. That's what the WEC was. Maybe the new fans don't know, but the people who were there, they know, they'll always know and they'll carry it with them."