In the immediate aftermath of his controversial victory over
Henry
Cejudo in the UFC
Seattle headliner, Yadong Song
seemed more than willing to run it back against the Olympic gold
medalist.
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It might not matter.
Song defeated Cejudo via technical decision when an inadvertent eye
poke rendered “Triple C” unable to continue after three rounds.
While the “Kung Fu Kid” appeared to be on his way to victory,
Cejudo had been competitive enough up to that point to where the
championship rounds might have been interesting had they
occurred.
However, UFC CEO Dana White doesn’t appear interested in seeing a
rematch between Song and Cejudo at a future event.
“Not at all,” White said at Saturday’s post-fight press conference.
“Not even a little bit. I just don’t want to see it again.”
After Song committed the inadvertent foul in the third round,
Cejudo took the full five minutes given to him by referee Jason
Herzog to recover. When the round resumed, Cejudo seemed to still
be hindered and he admitted prior to the fourth stanza that his
vision was compromised. While Cejudo seemed to be lobbying for a
point deduction during the break, White didn’t think it was
necessary.
“If you thought he intentionally poked him in the eye, [you take a
point],” White said. “Why would [Song] poke him in the eye? He was
doing pretty well. If he was getting his ass whooped, and he poked
him in the eye, you could probably make the argument.”
If Cejudo had revealed that he couldn’t continue during the
timeout, the fight would have been ruled a no contest. However, by
completing the third round, the bout became official and had to be
scored where the fight was waved off. White couldn’t speak for
Cejudo when trying to assess how the former bantamweight champion
was feeling in those moments.
“I have no idea [how Cejudo was feeling]. I’ll let him answer all
those questions,” White said. “Song looked good. Only [Cejudo] can
answer those questions. I don’t know if he thought ‘If I stop here,
is this a [disqualification], no contest?’ I don’t know what he was
thinking or maybe he can’t see.”
On Sunday, Cejudo took to social media to reveal the extent of the
injury to his eye.
“Diplopia, soft tissue damage, corneal abrasion,” Cejudo wrote
while posting a photo of his eye.
Diplopia, Soft Tissue Damage, Corneal
Abrasion.“hE wANteD a wAy OuT”
#UFCSeattle pic.twitter.com/SYG48fmb3M— Henry Cejudo (@HenryCejudo)
February 23, 2025
Cejudo is now 0-3 since coming out of retirement in 2023 and hasn’t
won a fight in UFC competiton since May 2020. Song, meanwhile, has
been victorious in three of his last four Octagon appearances.