Aljamain Sterling believes Henry Cejudo “quit” once the “competition started to get tough”

Aljamain Sterling has a theory as to why Henry Cejudo retired when he did.

After Cejudo defended his bantamweight title for the first time with a TKO win over Dominick Cruz back at UFC 249 in May 2020, he announced his retirement from the sport. Yet, three years later, he is coming out of retirement in the main event of UFC 288 as he looks to reclaim the 135lbs title against Sterling.

Before the fight was made, Cejudo was trash-talking Sterling which the champ didn’t think much of. But, now that he is back, Sterling is confident he will send ‘Triple C’ back into retirement as he thinks Cejudo knows he’s not on this level which is why he retired in the first place.

“Henry quit when the competition started to get tough. You sat on the sidelines while we were battling in the trenches of the stacked bantamweight division. But, if that is who the UFC wants me to fight, then that’s who I’m going to fight,” Sterling said on UFC Countdown.

Currently, Aljamain Sterling is a slight underdog against Henry Cejudo, but he is confident he has all the tools to win and defend his belt for the third time. If he does defeat Cejudo, he will set the UFC record for most title defenses of the bantamweight title, which he knows is massive for his legacy.

“It’s really cool (to be considered among the greats),” Sterling said at UFC 288 media day. “I had a couple of goals coming into the UFC. Obviously, one was to become a UFC champion, and we were able to do that and defend a couple of times. Getting into this sport was about changing my life, traveling the world and getting to meet new people. I was able to do a lot of that… I feel like I already won. Whether or not people want to include me in that conversation, that’s cool. It’s nice to see that I’m in that conversation, but at the end of the day, I have to win for anything like that to be a serious conversation. I still look at Dominick (Cruz), and I think we’re all chasing his record.”

Sterling enters the scrap coming off a TKO win over TJ Dillashaw back in October.

Stay locked to BJPENN.com on Saturday for full coverage of UFC 288.

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