I swear to all that is holy. Someone needs to save UFC flyweight / bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo that he’s entering interim champion territory now.
The two division champion has it in his head that he can now dictate who and when he fights. Only a few people have ever been able to do that and his name will not make that short list for a number of reasons.
Firstly, he’s champion in two divisions that don’t usually draw in pay per view buys. He has only defended the flyweight title one time and it was against TJ Dillashaw who dropped down in weight and looked emaciated. He won the vacated bantamweight championship against lesser known fighter Marlon Moraes in June and since then there hasn’t been much hype surrounding his name.
For a brief moment he caught the eye of opportunist Nikki Bella who used his publicity to get her name out there. Other than that, Cejudo has been calling out bigger names to face and even women. We are looking at you Valentina Shevchenko. The point is that Henry isn’t a big enough draw yet to dictate who and when he fights.
Cejudo spoke with Brendan Schaub recently on The Food Truck Diaries and he straight up laid it out that he would not be fighting Dana White’s decided challenger Joseph Bena idea because he wants to face other stars instead.
Dana can say what he wants, and he’s the president and what not, but when you own two weight classes, when you have some kingdoms, I think I have the leverage. No one’s going to force me to fight someone that I don’t want.
Cutting weight is hard for me, man. Making ’25 is hard. My debut in the UFC, I didn’t make weight. I didn’t make weight a few times in my fighting career trying to make ’25.
Only time will tell if Cejudo has drawing power, or better yet staying power. One thing is for sure, though. Dana White has no problem with appointing interim champions when people with no clout don’t play ball.
What do you think of Cejudo’s tactics.