Following his third ACL surgery in just over three years, former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz is on the mend and his spirits are high as he begins the rehabilitation process to get him back in the Octagon sooner rather than later.

Cruz missed nearly three years of action dealing with double ACL surgery on one knee before storming back and blasting through top 10 ranked fighter Takeya Mizugaki last September at UFC 178 in the comeback story of the year.

Unfortunately, as Cruz was preparing for an eventual showdown with current champion T.J. Dillashaw, the rug got pulled out from under him yet again as his left knee — the opposite knee from his first two surgeries — suffered the same ACL tear putting him out of action once again .

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Cruz underwent surgery on that knee in late January and now two months later he’s in recovery, but feeling better than ever with his sights set on returning to the UFC.

"Rehab’s going really well," Cruz told FOX Sports recently. "I’m pretty happy with how things are going just because with the other knee there were so many little things here and there that were giving me problems. What I learned is that first surgery going straight into that second surgery, really ate me alive, my whole body.

The fact that I’m only going through one surgery this time I feel great. I’m very optimistic. I think I’ll be back much faster than I was before for sure — Dominick Cruz

"The fact that I’m only going through one surgery this time I feel great. I’m very optimistic. I think I’ll be back much faster than I was before for sure."

Injuries to the knee like the one Cruz is going through right now typically put an athlete out about a year. UFC fighters such as Georges St-Pierre, Conor McGregor and Carlos Condit all went through similar surgeries and the recovery time was similar for each one.

Cruz isn’t ready to pull the trigger on a return date just yet because he’s only two months removed from surgery, but things are progressing in a way that he believes fighting before the end of 2015 is still a goal he can keep in mind.

"Is it realistic? I believe it is," Cruz said when asked about fighting before this year is out. "Am I going to say that I’m going to do it? I’m only two months into rehab and I need wait a little bit longer before I make a statement like that because right now I’m in the portion where I need the tendon to transform into ACL tissue. They took my patella tendon and now what happens is I’m in the very crucial part of healing, which my tendon is like a piece of Swiss cheese.

"So what happens is your body perforates your tendon, cause they took a piece of my patella tendon out and put it in my ACL so your body has to transform that tissue into actual ACL tissue. So it perforates it, turns it into Swiss cheese, puts a bunch of blood flow into it until it transforms it into an ACL tendon and then it becomes strong and it take a minimum of four months for it to get to that point. All you can do during that time is try to build back from the atrophy that took place and get your range of motion perfect and your balance perfect."

Because Cruz has gone through ACL surgery now a total of three times he feels like a bit of an expert on the subject, which is why he’s so optimistic after eight weeks in recovery. Just because he can’t fight right now, doesn’t mean Cruz is ever far away from the fight game.

This weekend he’ll be manning the anchor desk at FOX Sports for the UFC Fight Night card in Brazil, which is something he started doing when he was out from the first series of knee surgeries. Cruz is regarded as one of the best analysts in the sport and he’s definitely created a secondary career for himself when fighting is over.

But at 29-years of age, Cruz won’t be thinking about the end of his fight career for quite some time and a knee injury isn’t going to stop him from coming back.

Cruz plans to work his rehabilitation just like he’s been doing for the past two months and he hopes by sometime in early summer to have a date in mind for his return to the cage.

"I’m looking at about four months (rehab)," Cruz said. "And then from there I’ll be able to give everyone a more definitive answer."