Win or lose, Henry Cejudo is (most likely) retiring (again) from MMA following his fight against Payton Talbott at UFC 323.
Or at least that’s what he’s saying, and you never know for sure whether a retirement from “Triple C” will stick. He retired with the flyweight and bantamweight belts back in 2020 and stayed retired for three years. He said he was retiring again after his 2023 return resulted in losses to Aljamain Sterling and Merab Dvalishvili.
Now Cejudo is confirming UFC 323 will be his swan song.
“This is it for me, guys,” Cejudo said during a UFC 323 media scrum (via MMA Junkie). “This is it for me, unless Dana gets me a big fight with some other Mexican, then I’d be willing to do it.”
That ‘big fight with another Mexican’ would be Brandon Moreno, who Cejudo really wants to fight on a hypothetical Cinco de Mayo card. If he thinks doing a retirement swerve will help him secure that fight … well, it hasn’t worked in the past.
“Other than that, I think I’ve done everything at the highest level since I was eleven years old, from cutting weight at that damn time. And there’s just a lot of satisfaction in my life. I’m ready to move on, too. I have a couple kids that want to play with their Dad 24/7.”
“It’s not about anything else but giving what I have, and what wasn’t given to me in my last fight,” Cejudo said of his latest retirement fight. “That’s all. Fair shake. You know, despite whatever the outcome could come.”
Cejudo’s last fight was mess against Song Yadong that saw the Olympic gold medalist get poked in the eye so badly the fight was sent to the scorecards after the third round, netting Henry his third loss in a row. He’s clearly hoping for redemption against Talbott, but will settle for a non-clusterf—k of an ending to his fighting career on December 6th.
