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After UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski defended his title successfully against Brian Ortega last weekend, the question of who is next for ‘The Great’ has unsurprisingly been raised.
One potential opponent for Alexander Volkanovski is former UFC bantamweight and flyweight kingpin Henry Cejudo, who has called the Australian out over the last few days, begging for his chance to make history.
Alexander Volkanovski has already offered a retort to ‘Triple C’. The Australian suggested Cejudo doesn’t deserve a UFC featherweight title shot and the UFC won’t take him seriously. However, with the way the promotion has acted in recent years, you just never know.
So should the UFC book a fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Henry Cejudo for the featherweight title? The answer is absolutely not and here are five reasons why.
#5. If Henry Cejudo were to beat Alexander Volkanovski, the UFC featherweight division could be in trouble
Right now, the UFC’s featherweight division is one of the most interesting in the promotion. Champion Alexander Volkanovski clearly has an interest in remaining active and taking on as many fights as possible Unlike other UFC champs, he hasn’t previously fought many of his potential challengers.
Sure, the UFC could throw a curveball and book Alexander Volkanovski to defend against Henry Cejudo. If Volkanovski were to win, then realistically, no harm would be done. But what if ‘The Great’ were to lose to the former UFC flyweight and bantamweight champion? Simply put, the UFC’s featherweight division could be in a lot of trouble.
Not only would it lose some of its credibility, with a proven champion losing to a smaller fighter, but quite where it’d go in the future would be up in the air entirely. Essentially, the UFC wouldn’t be able to guarantee that Henry Cejudo would even be willing to defend his newly-won title when you take into account his recent behavior.
For those who’ve forgotten, ‘Triple C’ won the UFC bantamweight title in June 2019, defended it once and then promptly announced his retirement from MMA. That's despite rumors suggesting his move was all about squeezing the UFC for more money.
If he were to win the UFC featherweight division, then Cejudo’s bargaining power would be at an all-time high. There’s no telling if the UFC would acquiesce to his demands. If that were to happen, the featherweight division would be badly hurt.
It’s a risk that the UFC just shouldn’t be willing to take.
#4. The UFC featherweight division has far more deserving contenders than Henry Cejudo
With wins over Jose Aldo, Chad Mendes, Max Holloway and Brian Ortega under his belt, it’s clear now that Alexander Volkanovski is one of the UFC’s toughest and most proven champions.
However, to claim that the featherweight kingpin has cleaned out his division would be a massive mistake. The UFC’s 145-pound class is stacked full of talent. There are a number of fighters who could prove to be a threat to ‘The Great’.
The likes of Yair Rodriguez, Zabit Magomedsharipov, Giga Chikadze and Arnold Allen are all looking for a title shot right now. That’s without even mentioning the possibility of a third clash between Volkanovski and Holloway.
Looking at this, it becomes clear that, assuming he keeps making successful title defenses, Alexander Volkanovski has his hands full for at least the next two or three years. So would it be fair for the UFC to allow Henry Cejudo, who has never fought at 145 pounds in his MMA career, to leapfrog all of those great fighters for a shot at the champion? Absolutely not.
To allow ‘Triple C’ to do such a thing would be a slap in the face for the current featherweights attempting to claw their way to a UFC title shot. It would only cause a logjam in the division.
Henry Cejudo is undoubtedly a great fighter, but the UFC featherweight division just has far more deserving contenders right now.
#3. Henry Cejudo is not proven enough as a draw to warrant special treatment from the UFC
Whether you love his antics or you hate them, it’s hard to deny Henry Cejudo’s greatness as a fighter. ‘Triple C’ is one of just four fighters to hold two UFC titles in different weight classes simultaneously. That makes him one of the best ever.
However, despite his accomplishments, including the Olympic gold medal in wrestling that he won prior to his UFC career, Henry Cejudo has never proven himself as a money-drawing superstar for the promotion. ‘Triple C’ headlined just one pay-per-view during his UFC career, UFC 238, which was estimated to have drawn somewhere just over 250k buys.
And despite being a featured star for a number of years, Cejudo was never positioned as one of the UFC’s true poster-boys, even after he claimed his two UFC titles. In fact, it’d probably be fair to put him in a similar position as fighters such as Justin Gaethje and Max Holloway when it comes to star power.
In the past, the UFC has always given preferential treatment to its true superstars. Conor McGregor, for instance, has been given far more big opportunities than other fighters over the years. The same could be said for the likes of Ronda Rousey and Randy Couture. However, those fighters were all proven drawing cards for the UFC, something Henry Cejudo has never shown himself to be.
Therefore, the promotion would find it hard to justify giving ‘Triple C’ the kind of special treatment that would see him granted a shot at UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.
#2. In the post-McGregor landscape, the UFC should look to move away from “money fights”
Ever since the rise of Conor McGregor in 2015, and the UFC’s takeover at the hands of Endeavor a year later, the promotion has largely moved away from being a meritocracy. Rightly or wrongly, the UFC has instead focused on booking so-called “money fights,” often giving undeserving fighters big opportunities while more deserving ones are forced to sit by the wayside and wait in line.
With McGregor’s star now beginning to fade, however, and no star at that level coming through to replace him, could it be time for the UFC to change the way they handle their business in this sense? The answer is absolutely.
The UFC no longer necessarily needs to draw huge numbers on pay-per-view to remain financially healthy; their deal with ESPN and the ESPN+ streaming service ensures that. Therefore, the promotion should no longer cow-tow down to any fighters, regardless of their star power, when it comes to preferential treatment.
And in turn, that ought to mean an end to the era of “money fights,” which a prospective Alexander Volkanovski vs. Henry Cejudo clash would almost certainly be considered.
By moving away from a fight like this and booking ‘The Great’ against a genuinely deserving challenger like Yair Rodriguez or Giga Chikadze, the UFC would be sending a message that it can be once again taken seriously as a meritocratic promotion.
Hopefully, then, it will also put an end to fighters like Henry Cejudo simply wanting to follow in McGregor’s footsteps.
#1. Henry Cejudo has done nothing to deserve a shot at Alexander Volkanovski
The biggest reason that the UFC should not book a fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Henry Cejudo is obvious. Simply put, ‘Triple C’ has done nothing to warrant a shot at the UFC featherweight champion.
It’s impossible to deny Cejudo’s accomplishments in the octagon. The 2008 Olympic gold medalist holds a UFC record of 10-2 and remains the only man to defeat Demetrious Johnson at 125 pounds. His wins over T.J. Dillashaw, Marlon Moraes and Dominick Cruz also stack up hugely, making him one of the most accomplished bantamweights the promotion has ever seen, too.
But the fact is that Henry Cejudo has never fought at 145 pounds, both inside the UFC and outside it. More to the point, it’s not like he’s been running roughshod over the bantamweight division for the past few years, either. He won his title by beating Moraes in June 2019 and then spent almost a year on the shelf before overcoming Cruz, who hadn’t fought since 2016, at UFC 249 in May 2020.
So, based on the fact that he’s only fought once since mid-2019 and has been “retired” since May 2020, how do you justify giving him a shot at Alexander Volkanovski? In truth, it’s very difficult. Volkanovski himself has already stated that Cejudo would be an undeserving challenger, even if the fight would be an intriguing one in a sense.
So unless Henry Cejudo were to come back and win at least one fight at 145 pounds, it’s a clash that the UFC would do best to avoid.
