diff --git a/cmd/kube-controller-manager/BUILD b/cmd/kube-controller-manager/BUILD
index d5152c0e1c..0ecb2ccd55 100644
--- a/cmd/kube-controller-manager/BUILD
+++ b/cmd/kube-controller-manager/BUILD
@@ -21,12 +21,10 @@ go_library(
     importpath = "k8s.io/kubernetes/cmd/kube-controller-manager",
     deps = [
         "//cmd/kube-controller-manager/app:go_default_library",
-        "//cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/options:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/client/metrics/prometheus:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/util/reflector/prometheus:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/util/workqueue/prometheus:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/version/prometheus:go_default_library",
-        "//pkg/version/verflag:go_default_library",
         "//vendor/github.com/spf13/pflag:go_default_library",
         "//vendor/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/util/flag:go_default_library",
         "//vendor/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/util/logs:go_default_library",
diff --git a/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/BUILD b/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/BUILD
index d6940c30d3..14c11c12d6 100644
--- a/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/BUILD
+++ b/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/BUILD
@@ -83,6 +83,7 @@ go_library(
         "//pkg/util/configz:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/util/metrics:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/version:go_default_library",
+        "//pkg/version/verflag:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/volume:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/volume/aws_ebs:go_default_library",
         "//pkg/volume/azure_dd:go_default_library",
@@ -109,7 +110,6 @@ go_library(
         "//vendor/github.com/golang/glog:go_default_library",
         "//vendor/github.com/prometheus/client_golang/prometheus:go_default_library",
         "//vendor/github.com/spf13/cobra:go_default_library",
-        "//vendor/github.com/spf13/pflag:go_default_library",
         "//vendor/k8s.io/api/core/v1:go_default_library",
         "//vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/api/meta:go_default_library",
         "//vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/schema:go_default_library",
diff --git a/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/controllermanager.go b/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/controllermanager.go
index 664acf362f..407732862a 100644
--- a/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/controllermanager.go
+++ b/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/controllermanager.go
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/golang/glog"
 	"github.com/prometheus/client_golang/prometheus"
 	"github.com/spf13/cobra"
-	"github.com/spf13/pflag"
+	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/version/verflag"
 )
 
 const (
@@ -81,7 +81,6 @@ const (
 // NewControllerManagerCommand creates a *cobra.Command object with default parameters
 func NewControllerManagerCommand() *cobra.Command {
 	s := options.NewCMServer()
-	s.AddFlags(pflag.CommandLine, KnownControllers(), ControllersDisabledByDefault.List())
 	cmd := &cobra.Command{
 		Use: "kube-controller-manager",
 		Long: `The Kubernetes controller manager is a daemon that embeds
@@ -93,8 +92,11 @@ current state towards the desired state. Examples of controllers that ship with
 Kubernetes today are the replication controller, endpoints controller, namespace
 controller, and serviceaccounts controller.`,
 		Run: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) {
+			verflag.PrintAndExitIfRequested()
+			Run(s)
 		},
 	}
+	s.AddFlags(cmd.Flags(), KnownControllers(), ControllersDisabledByDefault.List())
 
 	return cmd
 }
diff --git a/cmd/kube-controller-manager/controller-manager.go b/cmd/kube-controller-manager/controller-manager.go
index 6618dae332..bd7c3f62ab 100644
--- a/cmd/kube-controller-manager/controller-manager.go
+++ b/cmd/kube-controller-manager/controller-manager.go
@@ -21,38 +21,37 @@ limitations under the License.
 package main
 
 import (
-	"fmt"
+	goflag "flag"
 	"math/rand"
 	"os"
 	"time"
 
-	"k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/util/flag"
+	"github.com/spf13/pflag"
+
+	utilflag "k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/util/flag"
 	"k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/util/logs"
 	"k8s.io/kubernetes/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app"
-	"k8s.io/kubernetes/cmd/kube-controller-manager/app/options"
 	_ "k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/client/metrics/prometheus" // for client metric registration
 	_ "k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/util/reflector/prometheus" // for reflector metric registration
 	_ "k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/util/workqueue/prometheus" // for workqueue metric registration
 	_ "k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/version/prometheus"        // for version metric registration
-	"k8s.io/kubernetes/pkg/version/verflag"
-
-	"github.com/spf13/pflag"
 )
 
 func main() {
 	rand.Seed(time.Now().UTC().UnixNano())
 
-	s := options.NewCMServer()
-	s.AddFlags(pflag.CommandLine, app.KnownControllers(), app.ControllersDisabledByDefault.List())
+	command := app.NewControllerManagerCommand()
 
-	flag.InitFlags()
+	// TODO: once we switch everything over to Cobra commands, we can go back to calling
+	// utilflag.InitFlags() (by removing its pflag.Parse() call). For now, we have to set the
+	// normalize func and add the go flag set by hand.
+	pflag.CommandLine.SetNormalizeFunc(utilflag.WordSepNormalizeFunc)
+	pflag.CommandLine.AddGoFlagSet(goflag.CommandLine)
+	// utilflag.InitFlags()
 	logs.InitLogs()
 	defer logs.FlushLogs()
 
-	verflag.PrintAndExitIfRequested()
-
-	if err := app.Run(s); err != nil {
-		fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "%v\n", err)
+	if err := command.Execute(); err != nil {
 		os.Exit(1)
 	}
 }