Henry Cejudo became only the second man ever to hold the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s flyweight belt after beating the record-setting former champ Demetrious Johnson at UFC 227 back in August. Now Cejudo may not get a chance to actually defend the belt, with strong rumors suggesting the UFC will be scrapping the 125-pound division in line with their new ESPN deal.
“The Messenger” has been campaigning for a super fight with the current bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw although with the rumor of Cejudo’s weight class potentially going under, the pair will surely meet in the heavier 135 pound division.
Cejudo appeared on a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and spoke about the future of the flyweight division and the possibility of a super fight with Dillashaw.
“I think more likely that T.J. fight might happen,” Cejudo said. “That T.J. fight might happen if they’re going to be done with the flyweight division. I think that cat’s out of the bag and Dana had mentioned that to me. He said, ‘Hey Cejudo, we’re going to take you up on that challenge for you to go up against T.J., but this is what the company has been thinking about for a while.’”
Both Cejudo and Dillashaw would like to see the 125-pound division stay as it allows both fighters to challenge each other to become a dual-division champion. However, at the end of the day, Cejudo says he just wants to be fighting the best regardless of what weight class it is.
“I like both ideas. I kind of left it off to him. I said, ‘I don’t know but I want to fight you.’ I want to fight T.J. and I want to go after the next best thing, and I think that’s him,” he said. “Let’s do it at [125] or let’s do it at [135], but let’s fight, man. I believe T.J. wants to fight me too.”
Cejudo also said he doesn’t intend to be in the UFC for too much longer with the 31 year-old telling Rogan he has “maybe three or four years” left of fighting.
“I’ve accomplished everything I’ve ever wanted to in my career,” Cejudo said. “I had three goals. My number-one goal was just to be a good person, a good father, a good husband. And then after that was to be an Olympic champ and eventually a UFC champ. And I’ve done everything I’ve ever kinda set my mind to. Those were the two biggest things anyone could do. I don’t see myself fighting for [more than] maybe three or four years,” he concluded.