Henry Cejudo opened up about his decision to return to the UFC after retiring from the sport in 2020.
Cejudo uploaded a video to his YouTube channel where he explained why he retired during his bantamweight title reign and spoke about his upcoming return against Aljamain Sterling. ‘Triple C’ mentioned that his desire to push himself and set new goals for himself is one of the reasons why he is returning to the UFC.
He said:
“When you’ve accomplished everything, you’ve reached everything there is to do in sports, you know what you wanna do? You wanna relax and enjoy it. You’re bored…People at times they need that time to rekindle the love of competition. To me, it wasn’t necessarily the sport but just having that drive, having that chip. This is why I’m able to relate to a guy like Jon Jones quite a bit.” [0:56 – 1:19]
Henry Cejudo said he has rekindled his love for competing again and feels he’s at his best both physically and mentally. He feels there is more to accomplish in his already glorious fighting career and that makes him eager to return to the octagon.
“There’s another mountain that I want to conquer where nobody has ever stepped foot in. I mean, you guys think about it, I’m in a mountain of my own. Two-division champ, Olympic gold medalist, and not in kickboxing, not in boxing, in the hardest sport in the world, which is called wrestling. The spirit of competition is back and I even get scared by it,” Cejudo said. [4:33 – 5:00]
Henry Cejudo will have an opportunity to regain the bantamweight championship that he relinquished in 2020 when he challenges Sterling in the main event of UFC 288 on May 6.
Check out the full video:
When was Henry Cejudo’s last fight?
Henry Cejudo last competed at UFC 249 on May 9, 2020, when he successfully retained his bantamweight championship after defeating Dominick Cruz via second-round TKO.
It was a unique time in the promotion’s history as it was the first event they resumed during the global pandemic. ‘Triple C’ was originally scheduled to fight former featherweight champion Jose Aldo, but he was forced to withdraw due to travel restrictions and Cruz stepped in as the replacement.
The former two-division champion announced his retirement following the win and successfully transitioned to a coaching role at Fight Ready MMA, where he has worked with champions like Jon Jones, Zhang Weili, Deiveson Figueiredo, and former rival Demetrious Johnson.