Former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz hasn't tapped out of his career just yet ... as the future Hall of Famer tells TMZ Sports he wants to put on the gloves one last time and step back into the UFC Octagon.
We caught up with 39-year-old Cruz, who is currently in Mexico City at the UFC Performance Institute, and he said he is in the process of "building myself up" for a bout.
"I'll tell you, I think I got a last dance," he said. "I want one last dance in me. Just go out there and have fun. And when I say fun, I mean fight to the bitter death and see what I have in me."
It would mark the first time he has been in the Octagon since 2022 ... which he lost via fourth-round KO to Marlon Vera.
In an ideal world, the former champ said he would have taken a fight this year -- but now says early 2025 is "what's going to work and line up."
"I wanted to get after it this year," he said. "But it's not looking like a matchup is getting negotiated exactly the way it is. There's some guys out there who looked really good; that whole division is stacked."
Cruz is 24-4 in his career ... with wins over big names like Urijah Faber, T.J. Dillashaw, Demetrious Johnson and more -- and he's looking to add one more win before riding off into the sunset.