After being called a “little dork” by Dominick Cruz following his UFC 269 win, it did not take long for Henry Cejudo to have a retort for his former foe and “king of the prelims.”
On Saturday, inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Cruz (24-3) was victorious over Pedro Munhoz in their battle of ranked 135-pound fighters. It was his second straight win and the first time he has won consecutive fights since 2016. In his post-fight interview “The Dominator” was asked about what could come next, and if he still pines for a rematch with former two-division champion Cejudo (16-2). A man who has flirted with the idea of a return since he left the sport in 2020.
Well, the 36-year-old is all for a chance to “smash” the face of the fighter who handed him a technical knockout defeat in May of 2020.
Dominick Cruz calls Henry Cejudo a ‘little dork’
“It pisses me off that that happened because Cejudo retired and I can’t smash his face in on a rematch. But if the little dork decides to come back, I’m here,” he said on Saturday night.
Never one to sit idly by and not respond when other fighters have his name in their mouth, Cejudo used a moment during his Triple C and the Schmo Show podcast to fire back at the bantamweight division legend. First, by calling the Californian “Mr. King of the Prelims” in the caption to a Twitter video post of the segment, and then by saying Cruz “bent those surgically repaired knees” during the fight-ending sequence of their bout.
Since the Cejudo loss, Cruz has competed on the prelims in his last two fights.
‘Triple C’ fires back at ‘Mr. King of the Prelims’
In the video, the former flyweight champion went in-depth on why Cruz’s frustrations over how their bout ended aren’t necessary. Since he claims he put Cruz to sleep and then woke him up, and that the referee was just doing his job by bringing an end to the fight. Something Cruz was unhappy about. Cejudo also went after Cruz over his recent critiques of fellow ESPN analyst Daniel Cormier and the effort he puts into the job.
https://twitter.com/HenryCejudo/status/1470515943470247938
“Jesus man, you absolutely make me sick. This is why we need referees. It’s not like, ‘Oh, let me get beat up, let me see if these referees give me the benefit of the doubt.’ No, you put yourself there. You put your face on my knee and I made you bend the knee. There were 13 unanswered shots. Rewatch it, dude,” Cejudo said. “
“I literally woke you up. I woke you up and you started getting back up. Yea, you are right, but after I knocked your a** out. You make me sick Dominick Cruz, talking smack to your own commentator frenemy Daniel Cormier. And now you want to save the world at the end with your [post-fight] press conference? You absolutely make me sick,” he added. “You contradict yourself a lot more than Conor McGregor and Dana White for that reason.”
Cejudo has remained retired since beating Cruz and defending the bantamweight title last year. Recently, he has suggested the only way he would be interested in a return to the Octagon is for a chance to be a three-division champion by facing featherweight king Alexander Volkanovski.
