Henry Cejudo was all smiles and confidence coming into his do-or-die title eliminator against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 298. But was much of that a show to cover up rumors of a terrible fight camp?
Cejudo would end up losing to Dvalishvili via unanimous decision, with the Georgian wrestler taking over as the fight progressed. We’ve never seen someone handle “Triple C” with that level of ease, and many wondered if Henry had lost the last years of his prime during a 2020-23 retirement.
Now Sean O’Malley is saying he heard Cejudo had a terrible camp for UFC 298 and may have come into the fight injured.
“I was hearing rumors on fight day that Henry didn’t have a great camp,” O’Malley said on The MMA Hour. “Henry didn’t get to spar, didn’t get to train as much as he wanted to. So with that being said, it’s like, you can’t go into a fight not 100% against a guy like Merab. Merab is a machine, he’s on a 10-fight win streak, he’s f—ing good.”
“So yeah, I wasn’t surprised when I heard that. Henry is getting a little bit older. If he’s done, he’s done.”
O’Malley knows something about bad fight camps. After his UFC 288 fight against Aljamain Sterling, he revealed he had injured his rib and hadn’t been able to grapple at all in training. “Suga” would end up catching Aljo with a clean KO punch early in the second round before “Funkmaster” could exploit that disadvantage.
Cejudo was never able to hurt Dvalishvili with his strikes, and an injury would certainly explain his inability to keep up in the wrestling exchanges. The older you get, the more prone you are to getting hurt during camps. As we’ve been repeatedly reminded over the past few weeks, 37 is just too old for gold when you’re dealing with the lighter weightclasses.
The former double champ said he wasn’t interested in hanging around if he wasn’t fighting towards a belt. It’d be a shame if this is the way he goes out, but he already retired the right way in 2020: on top with two belts. It’s very rare for fighters to leave on that high note. The chances of Henry getting to do it twice were always slim.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
