Henry Cejudo was fast-tracked into the UFC based on the strength of his wrestling credentials .
But when the 2008 Olympic gold medalist finally made his Octagon debut Saturday, he showed off his skills as a versatile striker instead.
Cejudo rarely needed to use his wrestling and spent 15 minutes using Dustin Kimura as target practice in a bantamweight bout at UFC on FOX 13 in Phoenix. The judges’ scores were 30-27 across the board.
“I don’t want people to think I’m a wrestler,” Cejudo said. “I don’t think I tried once to take him down. I want the fans in Phoenix, Arizona to get what they paid for.”
Cejudo (7-0) established his range early on and kept Kimura guessing with a mix of overhands, uppercuts, and kicks. He dropped Kimura with a right hand late in the round and followed up with some ground-and-pound, but chose to stand back up when it became clear a finish wasn’t coming.
Kimura (11-3), who lost for the third time in his past four fights, could simply never get his offense untracked. Cejudo continued stalking Kimura in the second round and opened a big cut over Cejudo’s left eye.
Cejudo was happy to finally get his UFC debut out of the way. He was scheduled to fight at UFC 177 as a flyweight against Scott Jorgensen, but had to pull out late when his body shut down during his weight cut. After the fight, Cejudo said he’d like another chance at flyweight competition.
“I want to UFC to give me a second chance at going down to 125 and then I’ll go back up,” he said.