JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After announcing his retirement following his successful bantamweight title defense against Dominic Cruz at UFC 249, UFC 135-pound champion Henry Cejudo chatted with the media backstage and revealed the moment that will forever define his UFC career.
The pinnacle of my UFC career? Man, there’s a lot of great ones,” he told reporters, including MMA Junkie, backstage at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena. “But I think it was beating Demetrious Johnson, even though a lot of you guys probably didn’t think I won!”
Cejudo (16-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) suffered a first-round knockout to “Mighty Mouse” in their first meeting at UFC 197 in April 2016, but eventually worked his way back up and faced Johnson again at UFC 227 in August 2018.
The second meeting went markedly different from the first, as a much-improved Cejudo matched Johnson throughout a high-speed flyweight chess match at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. This time, the fight went the distance, and Cejudo had done enough to take the verdict on two of the three judges’ scorecards as he polled scores of 48-47, 47-48, 48-47 to end Johnson’s six-year reign in his 12th title defense.
Cejudo acknowledged the close nature of the fight, but said his ability to earn a victory over a fighter he considers the best to ever step into the octagon is something he will hold dear in his retirement.
“I’ll take that razor-thin victory, because Demetrious Johnson is a very special athlete, a very special mixed martial artist,” he explained. “And if you were to ask ‘Triple C’ who was the greatest mixed martial artist of all time, it’s Demetrious Johnson.”
