Henry Cejudo had a busy week which included meeting with the UFC brass and hanging out with Mike Tyson hours before beating up someone on a plane.
When ‘Triple C” announced he was unretiring and jumping back into the USADA pool, there was skepticism because he teased he would do it for two years. Well, it looks like he might just be returning, mainly because he met with the UFC brass this past week to talk about his future and the division’s future.
Dinner with the UFC
On his podcast with The Schmo, Cejudo talked about his dinner with UFC COO Hunter Campbell and matchmaker Sean Shelby.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. They kind of give me the lowdown and the scope of how things are kind of forming. And, you know, I think there’s two weight classes that are really open. And I really want to take a stab at either one of them,” Cejudo said. There’s TJ [Dillashaw], Alialame [Sterling], [Max] Holloway, [Alexander] Volkanovski. The terrain is pretty nice, man. I’m sitting in a good position right now. So, we talked over dinner, and I was with them for a few hours. There was a lot that we had to talk about but to say the least but was a great meeting.”
Cejudo vs. Mighty Mouse III?
When asked if he would return to the flyweight division, Cejudo said he would only drop down for one fight.
“Well, the only way that I would ever fight 125 would probably be against Demetrious Johnson. That is the only guy that would lure me back in because I know I could beat the rest, Cejudo said. “Just to see my improvements of how far I have got, you know, that’s why I would want to pick Demetrious Johnson. But yeah, 135-145 there are a lot of decisions that are not done yet.”
Mending a relationship with the boss
As for what’s next for the former two-division champion, he wants to try and mend his relationship with the UFC president, Dana White. Cejudo feels like White doesn’t like him much, and he wants to right the wrong. Nevertheless, Cejudo believes the UFC wants him back, or else they would never have met with him in the first place.
“They love the comeback, they want me back. They would never have dinner with me if they didn’t want me back. For my next meeting, I would love for it to be with Dana White. I think there’s a lot that I need to talk to him about and where everything kind of came from,” Cejudo said. “Because I don’t know, looking back at it now, obviously he’s the boss but he’s a businessman and I probably did go overboard a little bit with the words. but this is just strictly business. You know what I’m saying? So maybe an apology but at the same time, the boss can’t hate me for me trying to fight my fight too. I would just eventually like to meet with Dana because I’m not sure if he is the biggest Triple C fan even though I know who respects me.”
Mike Tyson incident
Cejudo was also with Mike Tyson a few hours before his incident on the plane last week. In fact, the Olympic gold medalist smoked and took shrooms with Tyson that day.
“I have never seen Mike so so happy. And so we went to Nashville’s that night and then we ended up jumping in the same car as we went to the airport. This is an hour before the incident but I have never seen Uncle Mike in such good spirits man. So this dude must have really crossed the line because Mike hugged all of us and he gave us all a kiss before he took off to Miami. I came back home to Phoenix. But yeah, little did you know, somebody just happened to cross Mike and Mike was super happy,” Cejudo said. “It’s almost like you want Mike on mushrooms and you want him high as heck because when he’s not he could be that different human; that dude just happened to push those buttons.”
Cejudo talked to Tyson’s manager and according to his manager, ‘Iron Mike’ just had enough.
“He was the one that was blocking Mike from hitting the dude. But he said Mike Tyson just had enough. He like pitched a water bottle full of water and so once he saw that he was like Mike got up and said he freaking probably hit up with 30 combinations before they actually started filming it,’ Cejudo said. “So don’t cross Uncle Mike. It doesn’t matter who you are, where it’s at. He will stick you in front of the world and that’s exactly what happened.”
It truly is Mike Tyson’s world, and we’re just living in it.
Cejudo also announced that a documentary about his return to fighting will be produced by Netflix. So, with that out in the MMA universe, a return really could be imminent.
