Henry Cejudo‘s latest call-out wasn’t his best work, but he’s gotta start off somewhere.
Welcome Back To Twitter, Cejudo
An Olympic Gold Medalist, former two-division champion and undoubtedly the UFC’s “King of Cringe” Cejudo finds himself in a bit of a rough patch at this point of his coveted combat sports career. Four years ago, Cejudo retired as a reigning champion, a feat not many are able to repeat. Now, Cejudo sits on his ranking after back-to-back losses to Aljamain Sterling and Merab Dvalishvili.
Too far out from a title fight himself, Cejudo popped up with a clever call-out of a contender that almost went under the radar. Cejudo sent a message to no other than the #9-ranked Rob Font, who’s also coming off a pair of losses himself.
“Hey @RobSFont My wife told me I need to spend more time with my kids so let’s meet up July 20th at the Apex,” Cejudo wrote on ‘X‘. “Don’t even worry about getting me a Father’s Day Gift-the beating I’m gonna give you will be good enough. Sign the contract hoe.”
Styles Make Fights
Why is Cejudo, ranked #5, shooting down instead of up? Well, there’s not a whole lot of top options for Cejudo inside the UFC’s arguably most busy bantamweight division. Font holds some ground at #9 and hasn’t fought since December, with the rest of the top 10 having logged in one fight already in 2024 except for Cory Sandhagen.
In his quest for gold, Cejudo has been matched up with two well-rounded grapplers in Sterling and Dvalishvili. Coming up short on both occasions against the bantamweights, Cejudo wouldn’t mind fighting a fresh, new striking style in New England’s Font.
“Stylistically, man, I think it’s a great fight for me,” Cejudo said of Font on ‘Pound 4 Pound‘. “I also feel like he’s in the top 10 and I would like to really kind of get back into the groove of things, take a couple fights where I’ve been able to fight like the favorable opponents. Rob Font is good. He’s got slick boxing, him and [Calvin] Kattar. They come from a really good school.
“But I also see the other deficiencies, too. I just think overall, man. I fought Aljamain, who was the world champ. I fought the number one contender and a freaking beast in Merab. If I’m gonna long haul this, I wanna make sure that I’m getting the fights stylistically that can fit me.”
Rob Font has been controlled on the ground by Deiveson Figueiredo and Cory Sandhagen in his most recent losses, which could work wonders for the wrestling game of Henry Cejudo.
The Title Picture
A ruling champion of the bantamweight division in 2020, Henry Cejudo is still hopeful that there’s another title reign in store for “Triple C”. Though, time is not on Cejudo’s side at 37 years old nor is the division which has four numbers ahead of him in the rankings.
“To me this is all a competition,” Cejudo continued. “What’s gonna happen with the bantamweight division is I’m gonna allow Chito [Vera] and Petr Yan to fight each other. Because more likely the next person that’s in line is probably gonna be the winner other than Merab. Merab’s gonna get his title shot first, but it’s gonna be the winner of Umar [Nurmagomedov] and Sandhagen.
So I’m just like, alright, dude. I don’t wanna take a bigger fight right now because you know where that puts me? That puts me in a position where I’m just gonna wait and I’m not trying to wait, dude. I’m trying to fight and then fight the biggest fight to eventually get to the title.”
