'The Messenger' had to save the flight weight department before he could become 'Triple C'.
Around 2018, the flight weight division of the UFC was in a strange place with a lot of talk about the entire weight class that was removed from the UFC before it came in a new era.
At that time there was not much buzz around 125-ponders, but that suddenly changed when the second longest title in UFC history was terminated.
Henry Cejudo defeated Demetrious Johnson through a split decision in a rematch, but the uncertainty surrounding the flight weights did not end with a change in the guard.
The former Olympic gold medal winner had just won the title and now he was given the task of keeping the division alive.
Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images
Henry Cejudo put TJ Dillashaw in just over 30 seconds to keep flying weight alive
On the same night that Henry Cejudo defeated 'Mighty Mouse' in a classic fight, TJ Dillashaw defended the Bantamweight title by stopping Cody Garbrandt for the second time.
The two champions were then linked together in a fight that Dillashaw would somehow see falling to fly to try to become a two -weight world champion.
At the time, the Bantam weight champion believed that if he won the title, he would write history as the last UFC fly weight champion before the division was closed.
It was clear that Dillashaw had no long -term plans to compete in flying weight after his meeting with Cejudo that was planned for UFC on ESPN+ 1 in January 2019.
“The UFC wants to get rid of the division and they hired me to go down and close it and get a different belt,” said Dillashaw Forbes for the fight.
“It's a win-win for me. They pay me a (expletive) load of money to go down and kill the 125-pound division and collect a second belt. So it's playing time. “
Although this fight would be his last in the flight weight division before moving permanently to Bantam weight, Cejudo successfully kept the division alive.
After catching Dillashaw early, he got him away in just over 30 seconds in what was a heavily disputed interruption at that time.
Both men wanted to walk back to bantam weight in a rematch, but after Dillashaw was stripped of the 135 pound title after a positive drug test, Cejudo came up and became the fourth champk camp of the UFC once by beating the Marlon Moraes for the Vacancy title on UFC 238.
Henry Cejudo's legacy is already insured in combat sports, but he returns on February 22
After defending the Bantamweight title against Dominick Cruz on UFC 249, Henry Cejudo announced that he would withdraw from MMA.
His name was already in the history books as a former gold medal winner and simultaneously world champion two weight, but writing was always on the wall that he would return to the Octagon.
Since he returned in 2023, 'Triple C' has suffered back-to-back losses to the former Bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling and the current champion Merab Dvalishvili.
Cejudo now wants to prove that his days of competing at the highest level are not over by entering Song Yadong in the UFC Seattle main event this Saturday on 22 February.
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