Dominick Cruz is against Henry Cejudo jumping the line for a title shot.
The former two-division champion Henry Cejudo is currently living the retired life, or is he? Ever since making his early exit from the UFC at 33 years old, Cejudo has been teasing his return.
“Triple C” has been calling out champions of the bantamweight and featherweight divisions and other fighters as well. Although it is unclear just how serious Cejudo is about making his return, the last man to face him in the Octagon doesn’t think he should have the chance to jump the line.
Dominick Cruz knows a thing or two about being out of competition. His fighting career has been riddled with injuries that have kept him out of the cage for long periods of time. However, what sets him and Cejudo apart is that Cruz never retired. He remained active on the roster even when he was sidelined. He believes this fact is what should take Cejudo out of the running as a title contender.
“I don’t really want to talk much about him because he’s not even in the testing pool,” Cruz told Helen Yee via MMA Mania. “But I’m gonna say if he makes it through that next six months of USADA — remember, he jumped out of the testing pool so he had no pressure on him, he wasn’t building any division, he just took a break. Sat on his hands, got fat, got lazy, maybe did whatever he wanted outside of the testing pool. Now he’s getting back into the testing pool which means he wants to get back into a competitive mindset.”
Cejudo has mentioned that he would be re-entering the USADA testing pool and has been in contact with the UFC. At this time he is targeting Aljamain Sterling, the current bantamweight champion although he was previously looking for a featherweight title shot against Alexander Volkanovski.
Cruz is currently sitting in the number seven spot in the bantamweight ranking. Since he does not believe Cejudo should return to the top, he believes fighting the number seven, aka himself, would be a good fit.
“If you leave and you retire, you’re relieving yourself the pressure, you’re not in a competitive mindset. You don’t get to jump right back into the top,” Cruz said. “You get to jump to the back on the line. So, if he does make it through the next six months testing clean, I’d love to be the first person that he faces to end up back in the division because he’s not at the top anymore. He retired, he’s all the way in the back, I don’t care what he’s done. The way that our last fight went, there needs to be a rematch because it wasn’t clear.”
Would you like to see Dominick Cruz face off against Henry Cejudo again?
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