Henry Cejudo reconsiders giving TJ Dillashaw a rematch at flyweight

At UFC Brooklyn, UFC flyweight champion Henry Cejudo defeated UFC bantamweight champion via first-round TKO. Unfortunately for him, some members of the MMA community — particularly Dillashaw — feel the stoppage was early.

Previously, Henry Cejudo stated that he’d be interested in giving TJ Dillashaw an immediate rematch, however likely only at 135 pounds, for Dillashaw’s bantamweight title.

More recently, however, Cejudo seems to have reconsidered.

“If TJ. wants to run it back at 125 we can,” Cejudo told MMAjunkie. “If he still feels like he can beat me at ’25, let’s just run it again. To go to ’35 would be for the legacy, but I’m not opposed to him coming down to ’25 again. I’m not opposed to it.”

Cejudo also responded to Dillashaw referring to the outcome of their first fight as “a fluke.”

“That’s actually kind of a compliment,” Cejudo said. “Now he’s saying that it really did happen. If you say it’s a fluke, it’s something that wasn’t supposed to happen but it happened. It’s OK. It just lets you know how he’s feeling. It’s who he is. I’m a sore loser, too. I don’t say it in the public. He’s just revealing it more to the public and that’s who he is. I don’t take offense to it, I really don’t.

“(The stoppage was) not my decision. It’s not my job. I was going to hurt him regardless. It wasn’t going to make it past that minute, I promise you. I’d put my house on it, I would put everything I own on it because he was hurt.”

While Henry Cejudo seems willing to rematch Dillashaw at 125 pounds, he’s still got his sights set on the bantamweight title and a reign as a two-division UFC champ.

“If I go up it would have to be a title shot immediately,” Cejudo said. “I’ve got a belt at 125 and I can’t be fighting some No. 2 or 3 guy, with all due respect. I think there’s a lot of fights for me. I’m a chameleon. I fill into 135 very well too. I think I’ll be bigger than all of them. The size that I use and how I feel. At 125 there’s nobody in the world that can match my strength. Marlon Moraes, all those guys are on my hit-list too. I would love to fight those guys.

“I think taking out TJ, sometime in July or August. Taking that belt and then fighting possibly in December and to be, being the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Beating TJ I would be the only guy with two belts, an Olympic gold medal. You would be crazy not calling me the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Just taking heads. Putting heads on a spike.”

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 2/5/2019.