If Henry Cejudo really wants to fight in the UFC again his former employer Dana White says making a return happen is simple. Just have your manager call the matchmakers and book a fight.
The war of words between the UFC president and the former two-division champion has been a topic of conversation and source of news content for over two weeks now. As Cejduo continues his months-long campaign to evolve from “Triple C” to “C4,” and attempt to become the first — and likely only — athlete to be an Olympic gold medalist and three-division UFC champion.
The ship has sailed on a sought-after fight between Cejudo (16-2) and featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski (23-1) after Chan Sung Jung was stamped as the championship replacement for original opponent Max Holloway, at UFC 273. However, with “The Messenger” recently saying he would be open to a fight with interim bantamweight champion Petr Yan, the door for a return still seems open.
But, the UFC boss says there are ways Cejudo can go about a return, and how he has been going about things so far is will get him nowhere with the MMA world leader.
Dana White tells Henry Cejudo: ‘There’s a way to go about it if you really want to fight’
The thing is, Cejudo is retired. There’s a way to go about it if you really want to fight, if that’s what you really want to do, you want the Volkanovski fight,” White told Yahoo Sports. “What you don’t do is; I mean, you could. You could go online and start talking to Volkanovski and calling him names and all this stuff, but what you’d really have to do is pick up the phone and call and say, ‘Hey, what’s the procedure I need to follow to get back into a fight? I want to unretire and when can I get back into the USADA pool? How fast and what do I need to do?’
“That’s how you get a fight. His manager [Ali Abdelaziz] has 280,000 fighters under contract in the UFC. Cejudo’s been here forever. If you really want to fight, get down here and make some calls and say, ‘Hey, what do I need to do to get back in to fight? I want to jump back in.’ That’s how you do it,” he continued. “You don’t call people out and call them names on Twitter and then expect we’re gonna pick up the phone and go, ‘Hey, we’ve got a fight for you!’
White: ‘Why are we talking about this? How does this make sense?’
In the lead-up to this past weekend’s UFC Vegas 46 card, White was asked about the latest on his ongoing back and forth with Cejudo, and if the 34-year-old may be a case deserving of special treatment like other UFC greats have gotten in the past. But the White called the conversation “silly,” and he doubled down on the notion in his conversation with Yahoo. Hammering home the idea that the former flyweight and bantamweight champion knows how to make an official return happen.
You know how to do it. Have your manager call over here and get the deal done. That’s why I was saying the other night and the media is saying, ‘Well, Henry Cejudo said this and this guy said that,’ — it’s a silly conversation,” said White. “This is ridiculous to even talk about. You’re asking me about a retired fighter that isn’t anywhere near coming back, to take on Alexander Volkanovski, who is in a different weight class, in a short notice fight. Why are we talking about this? How does this make sense?
If you really want to fight, get on the phone with your matchmaker and get the ball rolling.
Cejudo last fought in May of 2020. Beating 135-pound legend Dominick Cruz by second-round technical knockout for his sixth straight win.
Who is getting the upper hand in this public battle between White and Cejudo?
