Henry Cejudo last fought in 2020 at UFC 249 against Dominick Cruz. He defended his bantamweight championship before vacating it later that month and retiring from professional mixed martial arts.
Reports of a return to the octagon have always surrounded ‘Triple C’ but certainly not against Hasbulla, as his latest Instagram post suggests.
Cejudo met social media sensation Hasbulla on a visit to Chechnya. The former flyweight champion accompanied Kamaru Usman and Justin Gaethje upon the invitation of Ramzan Kadyrov, Head of the Chechen Republic.
Cejudo took to Instagram and Twitter to share footage from his meeting with the young star, who recently inked a deal with the UFC. The montage shows Hasbulla mock punching, elbowing, and kneeing Cejudo and is hilariously labeled as “graphic content”. The former UFC star urged the Russian to sign a contract to fight him.
“WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT. Here’s footage of @hasbulla.hushetskiy blatantly assaulting me. I won’t press charges as long as he SIGNS THE DAMN CONTRACT. It’s time to settle this once and for all. I’M COMING FOR YOU HASBULLA!!!”
Hasbulla replied to Cejudo by demanding the release of the complete footage:
“why didn’t you expose where I smeared you, you expose where you hit me ???♂️”
Check out Cejudo’s post on Instagram:
Check out Hasbulla’s reply to Cejudo on Instagram:
Ali Abdelaziz confirms Henry Cejudo will face Aljamain Sterling for the bantamweight title
Henry Cejudo’s manager and Dominance MMA co-founder, Ali Abdelaziz, confirmed that the former bantamweight champion’s return to the UFC is a done deal.
Abdelaziz revealed that ‘Triple C’ will face off against Aljamain Sterling for the bantamweight strap and that the two have agreed to a bout in 2023.
In a recent interview with MMA Underground, Abdelaziz spoke to John Morgan and said:
“I can’t wait for my boy Triple C [Henry Cejudo] to come back. I like Aljo, I consider Aljo a friend. Aljo is fighting Henry Cejudo, it’s done. It’s done. It’s just that the UFC said it’s done, he knows it’s done. I understand he [Sterling] wants a different fight, but the man [Cejudo] never lost his belt. He’s a two-time champion, defended both belts, and he left on his own.”
It will be interesting to see if this matchup comes to fruition considering Sean O’Malley sits atop the bantamweight contender’s rankings after his impressive showing against Petr Yan at UFC 280.
Check out Ali Abdelaziz’s comments on the fight on Twitter:
Check out Abdelaziz’s full interview below: