UFC 178 marks nearly three years since Dominick Cruz last stepped into the octagon. It represents one of the longest injury layoffs in company history.

One of the draws of professional fighting is that anything can happen at any time, but that rings true both in and out of the cage. Some fighters last an entire career without suffering a major injury. Others can’t go a training camp or a fight without getting badly dinged up.

In the case of the former UFC bantamweight champion, numerous injuries have kept Cruz out of action since October 2011. “The Dominator” was one of the sport’s top pound-for-pound fighters during his title reign, but as each day passed, he became more of a forgotten man.

In Cruz’s absence, the bantamweight division has crowned two new champions, three new weight classes have been added to the UFC roster, and longtime titleholders such as Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva are now without gold.

Delays, frustration, anger and sadness have accompanied Cruz’s return to the UFC cahe. But at UFC 178 on Saturday, Cruz (19-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) finally get back to work when he meets Takeya Mizugaki (20-7-2 MMA, 7-2 UFC) in the featured FOX Sports 1-televised preliminary-card bout. The UFC 178 prelims air prior to the pay-per-view main card at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena.

It’s nearly impossible to predict how Cruz will perform after a layoff that included multiple knee surgeries and a groin injury. Other UFC fighters have gone through substantial layoffs, but few with the severity of Cruz’s.

The 29-year-old has overcome nightmare-like circumstances over the past three years, which raises the question about how he’ll bounce back. With the former champ finally set to return at UFC 178, here’s a look into other grueling layoffs UFC fighters have overcome.

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Brock Lesnar

Brock Lesnar’s battle with diverticulitis was well publicized. Lesnar, though, continued to compete while unaware of the severity of his medical woes.

The disease prevented him from entering the octagon at his full athletic capacity, but somehow he won more often than he lost.

The 37-year-old was struck down in the prime of his fighting career, and he was forced to undergo surgery to close a perforation in his intestine that had been leaking fecal matter into his abdomen. The issue caused pain, abscesses and the overtaxing of his immune system to the point he contracted mononucleosis.

Lesnar’s initial UFC run saw him capture the heavyweight championship. That success made it all the more shocking when he revealed the type of pain he fought through during an interview with The Canadian Press.

“I have a high threshold for pain, higher than most guys, and I couldn’t deal with it,” Lesnar said. “It felt like I had taken a shotgun blast to the stomach and then someone poured in some salt and Tabasco and stirred it all up with a nasty pitchfork.”

Lesnar’s rate of competition slowed down significantly after his first surgery. He fought just three times in his final two-and-a-half years before back-to-back losses sent him into retirement in 2011.

Frank Mir

On Sept. 16, 2004, former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir flirted with death when he was involved in a horrendous motorcycle accident that left him with a broken femur, a badly damaged knee and other injuries. Just like Cruz, Mir was the reigning UFC champion when a car struck him while riding his Suzuki GSX-R1000 sport bike.

Mir was ultimately stripped of the belt because of the time needed to recover, but that was just the beginning of his hardships. Only 16 months after the accident, Mir returned to the UFC, where he lost two of his next three fights and looked like a shell of his former self.

It appeared Mir’s career was at a dead end. But as time went on and Mir progressed toward full health, he regained his previous form and has fought in four UFC championship bouts since his return.

While Mir is currently at the tail-end of his career and in the midst of a four-fight losing streak, he admit the accident was a blessing in disguise.

“After the accident, certain athletic abilities were temporarily put on hold and the injuries sidelined my ability to fight,” Mir told FIGHT! Magazine in 2010. “I had to put my mind at the forefront, and I think that’s one thing that’s grown leaps and bounds. So I’m thankful that happened.”

Thiago Alves

Longtime UFC welterweight Thiago Alves seems to be one of the most injury-prone fighters on the roster, and he’s fought just once in the past 30 months.

A plethora of injuries have struck “The Pitbull” in recent years. Even forgetting about the fact Alves underwent brain surgery in 2010 to correct an abnormality, he’s had other recent hurdles.

“I had four major surgeries over the last two years,” Alves said in an interview with MMAFighting.com. “I had two surgeries in the last semester of 2012 and two in 2013.”

Alves did score a victory in his April return to competition; however, more injuries have flared up as he withdrew from a scheduled August matchup due to a knee injury. It’s unknown at this time if Alves is facing another lengthy layoff, but however it pans out, it’ll be hard to top his stint of four surgeries over two years.

Mike Swick

“The Ultimate Fighter 1” veteran Mike Swick can relate to Alves in the sense he’s run into what must feel like a never-ending line of injuries. To make matters worse, Swick was diagnosed and misdiagnosed with a stomach disease that required him to adapt to a new diet that damaged his body structure.

It resulted in an incredibly inactive schedule for Swick. The 35-year-old has competed just twice in nearly five years, with his most recent contest being a December 2012 knockout loss to Matt Brown.

While Swick was able to overcome the lingering injuries that most fighters deal with at one point or another, he claims adjusting his diet was the most challenging part of his recovery.

“I thought my career was over, or a big possibility,” Swick told MMAjunkie. “I decided to push forward and give it everything I had. It was a long road, but I did it. And there were critics out there, so it was a lot of stress.”

Stefan Struve

UFC heavyweight Stefan Struve hasn’t seen action since March 2013 because of a heart condition that nearly pushed him into retirement.

According to the towering Dutchman, the condition, which included a leaking aortic valve and enlarged heart, has been present for a considerable amount of time. However, doctors only became aware of it within the past year.

UFC officials sent Struve to the top medical professionals available, and after months of tests, it was announced he was cleared to return to the octagon.

Struve attempted to make his return at UFC 175 in July, but “Skyscraper” fainted backstage just minutes before his scheduled contest with Matt Mitrione, and the bout was scrapped.

Despite the recent incident, the 26-year-old vows he’s healthy enough to compete. Now booked for a fight with Alistair Overeem at UFC on FOX 13 in December, Struve insists he’ll make his comeback without another hitch.

“It really sucked that day,” Struve told MMAFighting.com. “We took a good look at everything that happened, and I think we figured it all out. I can’t wait to fight Dec. 13 and close this book full of bad things happening to me.”

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Cruz’s comeback fight at UFC 178 is one of the most significant storylines of a stacked event.

Whether or not Cruz can ever return to the form that made him the inaugural UFC bantamweight champion remains to be seen. However, he’s confident he can regain the belt now held by T.J. Dillashaw.

Cruz could sulk over everything he’s dealt with in the 1,092 days between UFC fights, but instead, he remains positive and focused on reclaiming his former glory.

“I genuinely believe I’m a stronger person as a result of the things I’ve been through,” Cruz told The Telegraph. “The circumstances you go through, whether a blessing or a curse, are things you have to learn from. It’s been my decision to make all these setbacks a blessing and for them to make me a stronger person.

“I’ve hit rock bottom, and I’ve had to rebuild and find out what kind of man I really am. If I didn’t share all that now, I’d feel like all that time away had been wasted. This whole thing has been a learning experience and a blessing to me. It’s given me the chance to change into a different and better human being.”

For more on UFC 178, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.