Henry Cejudo claims Merab Dvalishvili is “lucky” he was injured after the Georgian’s UFC 306 performance

Henry Cejudo wasn’t impressed with Merab Dvalishvili’s performance at UFC 306.

Despite Dvalishvili dominating Sean O’Malley at UFC 306 at The Sphere to become the new bantamweight champion, Cejudo wasn’t impressed by what he saw. Instead, his main takeaway was that Dvalishvili didn’t look all that impressive and he believes had he not been injured in his fight against the Georgian he would have won.

“What can I say? I predicted these things. Sean is not accustomed to going five rounds. He is not accustomed to people on his legs, and I just felt like – I still go back and say, ‘Hey, that fight with Aljamain Sterling, that was a fluke too.’ Aljamain was still in that fight, and people thought I was just hating. No, I’ve been in there with Merab. I did a whole lot better than Sean did when I fought Merab. I mean, I took down Merab. Like, Merab is lucky that I had that groin injury,” Cejudo said on Pound 4 Pound podcast… “Merab was lucky that I was hurt in that fight.”

It is an interesting take, as Henry Cejudo did have some success against Merab Dvalishvili. He won the first round as he appeared to hurt the now champion. He even took him down in the second round. However, Cejudo says his groin injury limited what he could do in the fight, which is why he says Dvalishvili is lucky.

Henry Cejudo open to fighting Sean O’Malley after UFC 306

Although Henry Cejudo has said he plans on dropping back down to flyweight next, he says he would stay at bantamweight to face Sean O’Malley.

Cejudo believes a matchup with O’Malley makes a ton of sense, and he has confidence it would be a good matchup for him. But, Cejudo doubts ‘Suga’ would want to fight another wrestler after losing the way he did to Merab Dvalishvili.

“I personally would love to fight him,” Cejudo said. “I think with all the trolling that we have done to each other, we both live in the same city. But, I just don’t think that he’s going to want to fight me particularly right after this performance that Merab did to him.”

Henry Cejudo is 16-4 as a pro. He’s coming off back-to-back losses to Merab Dvalishvili and to Aljamin Sterling for the bantamweight title.