There’s only one Henry Cejudo.
The self-proclaimed “King of Cringe” has been difficult to supplant from that throne since he first became an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champion in August 2018. Cejudo went on to capture a second title at Bantamweight in June 2019 after his Flyweight title win over Demetrious Johnson, and his antics have been second to none.
Set to return at UFC 298 against Merab Dvalishvili this weekend (Sat., Feb. 17, 2024), Cejudo and his longtime coach, Eric Albarracin, became the early center of attention after the event’s UFC Countdown episode released. The episode revealed “Triple C” relieving Albarracin of his coaching duties on camera, which caused quite a stir within the community. Cejudo released a video yesterday, claiming it was all a prank of sorts, but Albarracin says there was truth to the situation.
“That was real,” Albarracin said on The MMA Hour. “That’s the thing, nobody understands when that was shot, so that was shot in early December. If you followed me on my Instagram, you would see that I’m in Brazil for the last two months with Paulo [Costa] and Patricio [“Pitbull” Freire], and building the Broadstreet House down there, bringing international fighters in and building the next generation of fighters. So that was real. It was real.
“I hadn’t seen Henry since after the fight with Aljamain [Sterling],” he continued. “He came to Brazil to the Pitbull brothers in Natal, he even trained a little bit, and then I hadn’t seen him until that day of the Countdown.”
It’s certainly a very important pair of weekends for Albarracin’s fighters as all are either involved in championship-caliber match ups or title contender bouts. For Cejudo, a win over the streaking Dvalishvili could very well earn him the next crack at whoever is holding the title after the current champion, Sean O’Malley, rematches his challenger, Marlon “Chito” Vera, at UFC 299 next month (March 9, 2024).
Cejudo noted how he was understanding of Albarracin’s position and wanted to look at that perspective more than anything else.
“I think with Eric, obviously he has Patricio Pitbull and he had Paulo ‘Borrachinha,’ Paulo fights this weekend with me and Pitbull fights the following weekend,” Cejudo said at UFC 298 media day. “I just felt like it would be unselfish of me, especially when he has two guys, and I was happy to wait for such a long time. At the same time, I did need a little break from Captain (laughs).
“It worked out perfect.” he concluded. “We did chit-chat over the phone periodically, I let him know everything that’s going on.”
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 298 fight card right here, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET (simulcast on ESPN at 8 p.m. ET), before the pay-per-view (PPV) main card start time at 10 p.m. ET (also on ESPN+).
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