Brandon Moreno, the newly minted UFC light heavyweight champion, is not averse to defending his title against former training partner Henry Cejudo.
‘The Assassin Baby’ picked up the 125lb title this past weekend when he submitted Deiveson Figueiredo inside three rounds in the UFC 263 co-main event.
Former dual-weight UFC champion, Cejudo, was one of the first people to congratulate Moreno when he got backstage after his fight. The cool moment between the two fighters was caught on camera and has since gone viral.
“That moment was special because he was my teammate before, a long time ago,” Moreno told MMA Junkie. “He helped me so much. He opened the door of his house. He helped me some mornings to get my training in, in Arizona, five or six ago. I never had the real opportunity to say thank you. To say, ‘Thank you so much, Henry, for helping me in the past.’ I thought that moment (was right) to say that to him. He was in his character as ‘Triple C.’ But I knew and saw that he was very happy for me and my performance and my life at that moment.”
‘Triple C’ retired from MMA last year after successfully defending his bantamweight title against Dominick Cruz at UFC 249. Cejudo has consistently talked up his return to the Octagon ever since and has called out pretty much every significant name from flyweight to featherweight.
Moreno says despite their friendship, Cejudo could well be his next opponent.
“He’s another possibility,” Moreno said. “You never know. … Definitely, yes. It’s a possibility. Obviously, he’s retired. He’s almost a father. He is in a marriage with his girlfriend. He has a nice life. He has a nice life, bro. He’s talking about a fight against Volkanovski. He’s talking about a fight against Petr Yan. He wanted to fight against Figueiredo. You never know what will happen in the future. I’m the champion and I need to fight (against) the guys the UFC says. I don’t know. You never know.”
Earlier, Cejudo challenged the popular Dagestani blogger Khasbulla Magomedov in Russian.
