Athletes
Henry Cejudo Found The Fire To Fuel His Return
After Three Years Away, Former Two-Division Champion Henry Cejudo Feels The Time Is Right To Capture More Glory At UFC 288: Sterling vs Cejudo
Henry Cejudo is many things to a great many people, but ultimately, he is a meticulous craftsman. As an athlete, he is decorated with a pair of UFC belts and an Olympic gold medal. Peers and competitors alike tout his Fight IQ, his ability to make mid-fight adjustments and find a path to victory. Outside of the Octagon, he is the self-titled “Triple C,” the King of Cringe, the “soon to be C4.” It’s a schtick that stuck, a façade that, at times, clouds all of Cejudo’s golden accomplishments.
Don’t get it twisted: none of that golden shine has worn off on the former two-division champ, even as he prepares to end his thee-year hiatus at UFC 288: Sterling vs Cejduo and fight for one of the two belts he held when he called it a career in 2020.
Order UFC 288: Sterling vs Cejudo
Time waits for no one, though, and as much is true tenfold when it comes to mixed martial arts. Two men – first, Petr Yan, and then Aljamain Sterling – ascended to the bantamweight throne while Cejudo’s former flyweight crown spent the last three years volleying between Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo.
Henry Cejudo: 'It's A Challenge Within Me' | UFC 288
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Henry Cejudo: 'It's A Challenge Within Me' | UFC 288
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Life at home is different for Cejudo, as well. The 36-year-old got married in 2021, and later the same year, he and his wife, Karolina, had their first child. The day before UFC.com went out to Arizona to visit Cejudo, the Cejudo clan announced that they were expecting a second child, due in October. He also started breaking down fights and posting behind-the-scenes training vlogs on the YouTube channel he started in June 2022, posting several times a week.
How To Watch UFC 288: Sterling vs Cejudo
That all makes for a jam-packed day-to-day schedule, which understandably makes nailing down a time and place for a half-hour interview nearly as tricky as coming up with a gameplan that can stump his next opponent. As he is wont to do, however, Cejudo adapted and found some time between filming another fight breakdown and his second training session of the day.
“Life is somewhat of a business,” Cejudo told UFC.com. “You got to provide for your family. I’ve got a kid now and I have another one on the way, so it's not just about me. The world championship, it is just about me, but what comes with that is about my family. It's about others. If I had all the money in the world, I probably wouldn't come back. I'm making good money now, but that's just an honest assessment. I want my family to be good and live good on top of me having that drive once again.”
The mere existence of motivation is crucial in Cejudo’s decision to return to competition.
He admitted to getting “sick of things” after accomplishing so much. Not enough to where he had to get away from the game itself, but perhaps just the grind of it all. Cejudo stuck around the gym, helping the likes of Zhang Weili, Jon Jones, Jiri Prochazka and Deiveson Figueiredo prepare for championship bouts.
He recalls feeling the itch return during these moments, particularly when he cornered Figueiredo, who is only 10 months his junior, in his win over Moreno at UFC 270.
UFC 288 Countdown | Aljamain Sterling vs Henry Cejudo
“I'm not a fighter; I'm a competitor,” Cejudo said. “That's just the reality. and when you start losing that competitive drive in you, even when you still know you're growing, there was nothing more for me to prove. There really wasn't. I was happy with my career.
“It's the challenge of me knowing that I could still do it. I have the mind for this. I have the brain for this. I have the IQ for this. You can't go back (in) time. I'm 36 years young now, and I have to be able to show the world that competitive nature is still in me.”
Balancing Life In And Out Of The Octagon
Despite Cejudo’s increased personal and professional responsibilities, Fight Ready MMA striking coach Eddie Cha is impressed with the way he compartmentalizes each aspect. While some athletes might get distracted with the business side of the fight game or the requirements of being a husband and father, Cejudo has shown the ability to lock-in on the mat and flip the switch when he walks out of the gym.
“I think he's just a professional,” Cha said. “He knows how to turn it off. He knows how to shut it down. He has so many other business ventures with the YouTube channels and the social media. If you see him with his daughter, you can tell he's not thinking about the fight. When he’s with the team, the coaches, now he’s all business.”
That’s not to say he keeps things completely separate, but Cejudo shows a practiced focus as he flows through each role upon which he is called throughout the day.
Henry Cejudo Sits Down With Daniel Cormier | UFC 288
After he finishes his post-training strength-and-conditioning session in the morning, he goes over to kiss Karolina and his daughter before jetting out the door to go sit in a hyperbaric chamber to maximize the time he has to recover.
“This has nothing to do with people but yourself,” Cejudo said. “You got to live with this stuff. You got to wake up, you got to cut weight, you got to train twice a day. It’s a fire that kind of starts to come in, and then you start to kind of get excited, and then you show that drive again. And then once you start feeling that drive, then you're motivated to train once again. And when you're motivated to train once again and actually learn, that's when it starts getting scary. That’s when you start getting better.”
Henry Cejudo's Legacy | UFC 30th Anniversary
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Henry Cejudo's Legacy | UFC 30th Anniversary
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After spending at least an hour there, Cejudo heads to film a few YouTube videos with his producer, Michael, who tosses him questions and guides him through a handful of sponsorship reads. Cejudo breaks down Max Holloway’s recent win over Arnold Allen, previews a major boxing match and discusses rumors about Jon Jones potentially fighting Stipe Miocic.
Then comes time in a hot tub, a message, some stretching and a meal before heading back to Fight Ready for another couple of hours, where they continue to make tweaks that could make the difference on May 6.
“It's work. It really is,” Cejudo said. “I mean, you want to call it a passion, but it's really work, you know? The thing is, with the fight, it's like anything can happen. There’s a 50 percent chance that I could win and lose, but I like I like my odds according to my preparation… I'm able to be that much better and find the edges in everything that I do.”
A Champion's Mindset
“Hey, write that down. We need to get into those positions and do them live. We need to drill them.”
Cejudo is rounding out his second training session of the day, and that combination of competitor and technician is coming out.
To watch a training session at Fight Ready MMA in Scottsdale, Arizona, is to watch a collaborative process between several sharp minds constructively working toward a goal. The crew, which features coaches Santino DeFranco, Eddie Cha and Eric Albarracin, as well as Everton Santos Lopez, circles Cejudo between each round of work to break down ideas to the finest details as they fine-tune their champion and dissect Sterling.
“It's the challenge of me knowing that I could still do it. I have the mind for this. I have the brain for this. I have the IQ for this. You can't go back (in) time. I'm 36 years young now, and I have to be able to show the world that competitive nature is still in me.”
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The oddsmakers have the fight virtually set as a pick ‘em. However, pushing up against other people’s expectations is nothing new for Cejudo, who is blunt about his assessment of Sterling’s championship reign since he got the belt after eating an illegal knee via Petr Yan in their first fight.
“I’m not impressed, and that's quite frank,” Cejudo said. “He won his belt via Academy Award. He barely won (the second) fight against Yan, which I rewatched and was like, ‘Man, he got gifted a decision.’ His fight with TJ (Dillashaw), TJ didn’t have a shoulder. Yeah, he has three wins, but that’s just the honest answer. I was impressed by the fact that he was able to come back and beat Yan, but other than that, I just don’t see him as a better competitor than me.”
The Best Feeling In The World
UFC 288 goes down just three days shy of the three-year anniversary of Cejudo’s last fight. That one, a TKO win over former bantamweight king Dominick Cruz, came in an empty Vystar Arena in Jacksonville, Floirda, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When Cejudo revealed his decision – even though many, including Cha, believed they’d see Cejudo eventually return – the only people in the crowd were UFC staff and his team. It felt like a relatively unceremonious farewell for the self-declared “greatest combat athlete of all-time,” especially one with his own brand of showmanship like Cejudo.
Throughout fight week, Cejudo and Sterling are almost guaranteed to trade verbal jabs. They are not only two of the best fighters on the planet, but two men experienced and comfortable with a microphone in their face. Then, on May 6, he’ll walk into what is likely to feel like enemy territory for the New York-bred Sterling, but with someone as deft at compartmentalizing his focus like Cejudo is, none of that matters all that much compared to the opportunity at hand.
“It's not about the cameras and all this other stuff,” Cejudo said. “I'm just being a businessman there with my persona. It was never about the people, and I hate saying it, but it's the reality. I wrestled my whole life, one of the toughest sports in the world, with nobody in that damn crowd, but that excitement of you being the best in the world and feeling that, that's what I (care about).”
Cejudo has already made it clear his intention is to get his bantamweight title back and then eventually move up to featherweight to go for a title in an unprecedented third weight class. That’s easier said than done, as Alexander Volkanovski - arguably the best fighter, pound-for-pound - occupies that throne. He and Cejudo have exchanged barbs over social media (although that list runs long for Cejudo), and the Australian currently has his hands full preparing to defend his title against Yair Rodriguez at UFC 290, but if there’s a person who could make that happen, it’s Cejudo.
But first comes reclaiming that belt and becoming a two-time bantamweight champion, which already puts him in rarefied air occupied only by Cruz and Dillashaw. It would just be yet another chapter to Cejudo’s long-crafted identity as the ultimate competitor in combat sports, an identity crafted in a manner that is undeniable and all his own.
UFC 288: Sterling vs Cejudo took place live from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on May 6, 2023. See the Final Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass
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