Henry Cejudo shocked the MMA world when he announced his retirement following his second-round stoppage of Dominick Cruz at UFC 249.
There are skeptics who don’t believe that the UFC bantamweight champion will remain retired long, while others think that this is a ploy for Cejudo to get a bigger paycheck.
The 33-year-old held firm on his retirement after his successful title defense but does believe that he’ll come back if the price is right.
“(UFC president Dana White) knows the number, but let all these other bantamweights kill each other,” Cejudo said. “Let them have fun, if they’re complaining that I’m picking fights.”
Prior to his fight with Cruz, Cejudo discussed facing the likes of Jose Aldo next. However, following his stunning finish of a former champion that had never been knocked out, Cejudo bid the sport farewell. In his post-fight interview, he mentioned that he was ready to start a family and accomplished all that he set out to do in his MMA career.
“You can say whatever the hell you guys want, but I’ve done everything, and I do feel like I should be part of Mt. Rushmore when it comes to combat sports,” he said at the post-fight press conference. “I do feel like I’m the greatest combat athlete of all time with what I’ve accomplished.”
The man who held world titles at both flyweight and bantamweight stated that retirement had been on his mind for some time. Considering that he has been in competition for much of his life as a wrestler with an Olympic gold medal and a two-division world champion in the UFC, the time was certainly drawing near for Cejudo to call it a career. With an opportunity to go out on top, Triple C simply couldn’t pass it up.
“Man, I love freedom,” he said. “You saw me at a lot of UFC events. I enjoy that stuff. Since I was 11 years old, I probably have about 600 competitions of wrestling matches in my life. That’s all I’ve ever done. I don’t have kids — finally got a girl now. But I want to step into that new chapter of my life. I’ve been extremely selfish, rightfully so, to obtain what I’ve obtained.
“I want to leave on top. I did it in wrestling, and now I want to do it in the sport of MMA. I want to remain king forever.”
We’ll see how long it lasts and if White will meet the financial demands to get Cejudo back into the Octagon.