How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love Henry Cejudo
Photo by Bob Martin /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Commanding the Narrative
If I had to boil my passion for combat sports down into one single component, that component would likely be transparency. Fighting is such a visceral part of human nature that it (somewhat justifiably) isn’t even recognized as a sport by some critical onlookers. Truths are revealed in the heat of battle, and those truths are often quite ugly. When you have spent enough time and energy devoted to studying an individual pugilist as I have, you begin to see the individual’s personality, fears, and drive manifesting themselves in bloodsport.
These revelations can be unflattering. Watching Anthony Johnson mentally implode against Daniel Cormier in their rematch was both comical and deeply disturbing, given Johnson’s ‘bully’ mentality rearing its ugly head in some awful domestic abuse controversies. However, when it comes to truly great fighters, fighting isn’t just a way for them to tell their story. It becomes their story, and every outing reveals something intrapersonal and unique about who they are. Fighters like Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald have both demonstrated incredible heart and will, walking through fire to achieve victory, but only one of these men thrive in that sort of environment.
In roughly six years in the UFC, Henry Cejudo has finally begun revealing his truth and that truth is indisputable greatness. I’m not sure how to quantify the ‘best combat sports athlete’ discussion, but in terms of sheer breadth of accomplishment, Cejudo is unquestionably near the top of that list. An Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling, and a two-division UFC champion (in the good divisions no less!). Official victories held over two certified Hall of Famers. Over just a few years, Cejudo has demonstrated incredible leaps of improvement, both as a technical fighter and as a ring general. At times during Cejudo’s dueling UFC championship reigns, his in-fight methods and results have been nothing short of breathtaking. At a minimum, he is a top 5 P4P fighter in the world, regardless of organization or division.
This is still only half the story. Watching his fights reveals an entirely new layer of determination and resolve. Just as the colossal rematch against Demetrious Johnson began, Cejudo’s foot rolled and it looked like he would be fighting the all-time great champion on one leg. Days before his return to bantamweight against the #1 ranked contender, Cejudo sprained his ankle. (Normally, this kind of thing would be cause for an immediate cancellation.) In the first round of said fight, he badly tore three fourths of his left shoulder, ripping bone off his scapula as he attempted to shake out some cobwebs. He wasn’t hurt badly in the midst of his assault; he was compromised before it even began. No complaints or excuses were made, but then again they didn’t have to be. Cejudo finished Moraes by TKO in the waning seconds of the third round.
While ‘The Messenger’s’ wooden promos make for ineffectual marketing, little by little, Henry Cejudo has shown us who he is. He is the most ferocious, indefatigable competitor in MMA history.
And he might just be my favorite fighter in the sport today.
Frustrating Talent & Wasted Ethic
Henry Cejudo’s road to greatness couldn’t have been more unpredictable. Beginning wrestling at age 11, Cejudo came from a tumultuous childhood. A lot of this was due to his father. Jorge Cejudo was a severe addict, going as far as to steal his children’s Christmas presents for drug money. As a child, Cejudo was always moving, upwards of fifty locational transitions throughout his adolescence. Despite winning the U.S. Nationals as a high school senior, Cejudo’s cot at the U.S. Olympic Training Center was his first bed all to himself.
Famed United States wrestler and coach Terry Brands became the driving force behind Henry Cejudo’s Olympic success. Despite his success as a high school wrestler, Brands’ coaching and attention was quickly internalized by Cejudo. In Brands’ eyes, it was crucial to make Cejudo understand that despite his innate talents, he could still be beaten without the proper preparation. While at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, the bond between coach and student was palpable. Henry says, “I always took Terry Brand’s words personal. Everything he said, I ate up. If it was constructive criticism, or if he told me I was the best in the world, I took it personal.” As a wrestler, Cejudo was a preternaturally quick learner, both in practice and on the mats. Brands says, “Henry’s biggest strengths [were] his speed, and...his ability to pick things up.”
Cejudo apparently told his brother he was going to win the Olympics with this specific move. Mission accomplished.
After netting the gold medal in ‘08, an unexpected wrench was thrown into Cejudo’s freestyle wrestling career. In an upset loss, he wound up losing in the 2012 Olympic Trials to Nick Simmons, who took 5th place at the 2011 World Wrestling Championships (placing behind Radoslov Velikov, whom Cejudo defeated in ‘08). Cejudo lost to Simmons, who himself didn’t even end up qualifying for the Olympics. Immediately following the match, Henry tearfully retired from wrestling, stating, “There’s so much sacrifice that’s done in the sport of wrestling, most people don’t realize. To us, it’s not every four years. It’s every day, it’s every minute, it’s every second...it’s made me who I am, but now I’m ready to move on.”
Cejudo has always emphasized how much his story is meant to inspire. Even as he was leaving his lifeblood in wrestling behind, he remained optimistic. For Henry, the gold medal was never meant to be the apex of his accomplishments. It was to tell his story to those less fortunate in hopes of inspiring something similar. This immigrant son of a drug-addict gritted his way to the top of the athletic mountain in one of the most physically grueling sports in the world, and that didn’t seem to matter nearly as much as simply getting the opportunity to compete. The word “humbling” comes to mind, but so does the word “expectant.” After all, there is a chance Cejudo was simply saving face after shortchanging his preparation.
A lack of motivation was a major talking point surrounding Cejudo long before his failed Olympic bid in 2012, and it stuck even as his MMA career was getting underway. After failing to make the finals at the 2007 Sunkist Open, Henry felt so dejected that he forewent the opportunity to compete for third place, instead taking an entire week off from Olympic training and laying low in San Diego with his then-girlfriend. After the 2008 Olympics, Cejudo spent two and a half years off the mats altogether. Even his bond with Brands seemed to deteriorate as Henry seemed too preoccupied with too many distractions (including two books being written about him and a play about his life, staged in Arizona).
Henry’s success was considered a classic American story of determination and heart, and everyone, including Cejudo himself, seemed to internalize it as such. Biographies, articles, films, and the aforementioned play were all being openly discussed, and it’s not difficult to see why. In a vacuum, the story was quite a remarkable one. Cejudo’s heritage, upbringing, training situation, underdog flair, age, and his ability to battle his way back from adversity...everything cues. Cejudo’s story played like an Oscar-bait Best Picture nominee.
Herein lies the problem, trying to tell the story of a 21-year-old: his story wasn’t anywhere close to being over. The loose three-act structure that trended through Cejudo’s childhood, training, and Olympic victory was inspired, but unfinished. The great American story wasn’t bookended. Winning the gold medal shot Henry into the stratosphere, but the failed 2012 qualifiers shot him back down to earth. After walking off the wrestling mats for good, Cejudo was forced to reconcile with himself.
For most casual observers, Cejudo’s Olympic pedigree would be enough to inspire confidence towards an MMA career, but people who knew of Henry’s motivational hindrances were understandably skeptical. When Cejudo’s move to MMA was announced, Mike Riordan wrote a lengthy article about his reticence,
“Unfortunately, Henry's preparation for the 2012 Olympic trials showed a decided unwillingness, or even an incapability, to make the choices necessary to maintain his status as a world championship level combat athlete. I also believe that some of his choices in association should at least raise questions. For these reasons, I would be somewhat dubious of Henry Cejudo's long term MMA aspirations until he signs with a major organization and gets a few fights under his belt,” (Olympic Gold Medalist Henry Cejudo Comes To MMA, Why He'll Make A Big Splash, And Why He May Not).
This reputation preceded his entry into MMA, as well. When he turned pro in 2013, he struggled making weight in four out of his first eight fights. In two of his six regional fights, Henry missed weight at 125 pounds, and his first UFC fight was at bantamweight. He couldn’t even make it to the scale in his first fight against Scott Jorgenson, originally slated for UFC 177. Before he even stepped foot in the ring, the UFC was threatening to cut him if he refused to fight at bantamweight.
Cejudo’s personality didn’t buoy his standing either.
‘The Messenger’ was never a natural personality, and over time, he seems to have embraced this as his personality. When a meandering camera lands on him in the audience during UFC PPVs, he grits his teeth and stares down the camera. It looks ridiculous, and even he seems to be biting back a laugh as he plays up the persona. His promotional schtick appears to be a slightly more self-aware runback of Tito Ortiz, with the self-appointed moniker ‘The King of Cringe.” It’s rarely funny, but at the very least, it’s become consistent. In the rare moments when Cejudo is just talking with the media (as opposed to ‘at’ the media), he is surprisingly candid and even a bit awkward.
After becoming only the fourth fighter in UFC history to hold championships in two divisions, Henry Cejudo addressed the media with genuine modesty. When asked about winning his second title, he answered, “That was almost never my goal. My goal was to just win the Olympics, be a UFC champion, and that’s it! But, then I saw my improvement as a mixed martial artist. The mind, the people around me, and that all changed. I went, you know what, I can do this. Why not me?”
Henry’s general clumsiness in front of cameras and during UFC promotional shoots is indicative of a deeper revelation; this is someone who has spent their entire childhood and teen-years between an impoverished home and wrestling institutions. Forgive the man for not being particularly well-adjusted.
Vying By Nature
“The reason why I became the best in the world is because I was just his student. I was his soldier, and he was my general,” -Henry Cejudo on Terry Brands and winning the gold medal.
Henry Cejudo has the heart of a soldier in the body of an Olympic competitor. This might be the most mercurial, yet fundamentally vital component of his profile. It’s one thing for a fighter to demonstrate themselves as coachable (Lee), adaptable (Dillashaw), or disciplined (Volkanovski). It’s another for a fighter to show themselves to be...devoted. Tireless obedience. Often times, fighters can be thrown off a gameplan if they’re forced to fight against type or if they don’t feel it immediately working. Cejudo doesn’t just carry out orders. He carries out orders that he himself doesn’t even seem to fully understand.
This kind of approach would be disastrous if either side of the fighter/coach duo were anything less than completely confident in the other. Staying at kicking range with Marlon Moraes for a round and a half in order to gas out the kickboxer was a shockingly dangerous approach, and yet Cejudo did exactly as he was told. The moment his corner told him to collapse the distance and punch with his opponent, he blitzed and bombed with terrifying alacrity. He’s used to fighting out of a deficit. It’s more than simply impressive. It’s important.
Certain fighters have that switch, and you know what it looks like when they flip it.
It is no coincidence that all of Cejudo’s greatest sporting accomplishments have been reinforced by diligent coaching. Even when Cejudo’s focus and commitment in training were tenuous and sources of friction between him and his team, the results of a completely dialed in Cejudo are undeniable. I don’t know how much thoughtful craft exists within Cejudo in a vacuum. He needs a coaching staff specifically tailored to his initiative as a fighter.
There have always been flashes of greatness within Cejudo as early as his dominant decision victory over the aptly named submission specialist, Dustin Kimura. Even as an unrefined compacture of violence and athleticism, Cejudo always understood what it meant to throw back, see punches coming, and leveraging his strength. Analysts joke about athleticism being the best base for fighting or athleticism as cheating, but Cejudo doesn’t just represent how far athleticism goes in the sport of MMA. He is someone who understands fighting, and can shift his gears on the fly.
As we know, being part of the freak .01% of athletes is the best base for MMA.
Before Cejudo even knew what his future in MMA held, he was fighting for a place on the roster against Kimura, since his initial bid at 125 imploded due to a failed weight cut. His back was against the wall before the fight even began, and he fought like it. The raw essence of a pressure boxer was apparent, as was his basic knack for being a fight. Throw a shot away, move the head, and then fire three or four more times. Occasional takedown. Repeat. There wasn’t anything particularly complicated about Cejudo’s approach, but his athletic prowess shined through in both his punching power, his speed, and his durability. The base was there, but it was an open question how much Cejudo would actually be willing to build on it.
The answer was very high, but not without some foundational lessons. When Henry received his first shot against Demetrious Johnson at UFC 197, everyone except Cejudo unanimously realized that it would be a blowout. Even the pre-fight promotions were limp and expectant, as Cejudo’s gold medal was the only talking point the UFC could mine from the contender. At the time of the bout, most analysts and pundits predicted another routine defense for the champion with Cejudo’s physicality and toughness being enough to carry him to a decision.
Instead, Demetrious Johnson put forth his greatest, most concise performance ever and it was entirely bred from the clinch. Of all the places Cejudo was predicted to lose this fight, the clinch was not one of them. It started comfortably enough for Cejudo; DJ would grab an underhook and fight for bicep control on the opposing side, Cejudo would accept the overhook and focus on keeping his hips back. But, little by little, DJ revealed the layers to his clinch and it slowly began to turn from an area of comfort into an inescapable void for Cejudo.
It wasn’t just the clinch itself that discombobulated Cejudo, but DJ’s entries were off of Cejudo’s punches and he would take angles on entry. DJ would both take small openings, and attack spaces to open larger ones.
Short punches were landed by DJ in transitions. In the meantime, DJ would post his hand on Cejudo’s thigh to prevent his opponent’s hips from getting too close. Subtle pulls and twists began discombobulating Cejudo’s posture. Suddenly, knees piercing Cejudo’s body as he tried to find his positioning. With his posture broken, DJ switched to the collar ties and jerked the Olympian around with frightening ease. The clinch wasn’t a static lock-up. It became an entirely foreign space of unseen and unrecognized angles that Cejudo didn’t even know existed, despite the countless hours he had spent on the wrestling mats. It didn’t matter; DJ was playing a completely different game and finding completely different openings.
My friend and colleague Ed Gallo told me, “In the clinch, you’re used to giving up that space between your hips defensively as a wrestler and grappler, which is poor for striking.” The more space Cejudo gave, the more DJ took. For most fighters, this kind of humiliating would erode a young fighter’s confidence, but for Cejudo, it lit a fire under his ass and he started caring more about MMA than he ever thought he needed. A vicious first round stoppage loss turned out to be the best thing for him. The knowledge that someone, somewhere was better than him at this sport was enough to intensify his commitment to a terrifying degree.
If the first DJ loss was a lesson in skill and how much Cejudo still had to learn about the sport of MMA, then the Joseph Benavidez loss was a lesson in experience. Benavidez remains an incredibly challenging fighter to read, since he combines bobbing-&-blitzing movement with surprising depth of skill as a combination puncher. Random throwaway strikes become indistinguishable from 50% punches and those from even harder ones. When Cejudo threw back at Benavidez upon his opponent’s exits, he was able to catch the wily veteran, but as the fight progressed, Joe would consciously start moving his head away from the Olympian’s more predictable patterns.
Cejudo’s willingness to punch through exchanges gave him an early moment of success, when he closed the door on an exchange and clipped Joe with a left hook upon exit, but this fight also demonstrated how that kind of approach could also come back to bite Cejudo. Henry isn’t comfortable taking steam off his shots, which meant that opportunities to land tighter, more compact punches inside were lost. Subtle angles in the pocket, a bit more defensive awareness, and an ability to read an opponent’s timing meant that Benavidez’s experience was just enough to get the nod.
Benavidez’s command of rhythm paid dividends against Cejudo, leading with a leg kick and following with a pawed lead hand a full beat behind it and then a right hand a half beat behind that. Cejudo’s counters fall short, as Benavidez is in-and-out before Henry even realizes that he’s been hit.
It is notable, though, how close Cejudo came to winning. There were specific tactical flashes that Henry began unveiling, such as a propensity to punch off his kicks and a nascent ability to counter entries with kicks (typically to the body or legs). Attempting a throw off a whizzer, missing it, and punching in the transition. None of these were particularly systematic nor were they integrated in such a way that lead to sustained success, but they worked. It was an aggressive performance reminiscent of the Cejudo who fought Kimura, but with a bit more tact working its way into his approach. Encouraging.
Even as early as the Kimura fight, Cejudo has always shown a knack for attacking in transitions.
The real “show me” moment for Henry was his TKO over Wilson Reis, a showcase fight for his newly-acquired Karate kickboxing approach. Before this, Cejudo mostly fought as an even-footed power boxer who would occasionally kick the legs as something to do before mixing in a takedown here and there. Against Reis, Cejudo really began to embody the approach of his teammates and Bellator mainstays, Patricky and Patrício ‘Pitbull’ Freire.
In a long, bladed stance with his rear foot facing outward, Cejudo demonstrated an active lead hand and a comfort drawing opponents onto the inside angle counter.
I love this entry. After establishing the open side body kick and inside leg kick as threats, Cejudo leaps forward with his front foot angled out, opening his hips up for a body kick. Reis anticipates the leg kick, so he destroys his own posture by lifting his lead leg up. Cejudo, instead, throws a right knee up the center before pushing Reis off.
Typically, MMA fighters simply attempt to better at whatever it is they start with. For a fighter to demonstrate an entirely new skill set and approach isn’t just surprising; it is own downright rare.
While the Reis victory was laudable, Cejudo’s Karate-style counterpunching approach proved less than preferable against Sergio Pettis. Possessing some of the best footwork at 125, Sergio was a unique challenge for Cejudo as the first fighter who could comfortably outrange him, even with his new style in play.
Pettis’ ability to fight hands at range, step laterally to diffuse Cejudo’s kicks, and use feints and throwawys jabs to draw counters threw Cejudo off his game.
It wasn’t until Cejudo decided attempting to kickboxing at range was fruitless and he just barrelled forward that Sergio started falling apart, be it from a knockdown or a takedown, which Cejudo seemed none too proud to return to.
After a somewhat lackluster decision win over Pettis, Cejudo nonetheless was slated to challenge the mighty Demetrious Johnson again for the champion’s twelfth title defense. To date, Demetrious Johnson’s title reign is the longest in UFC history, in terms of most successful defenses and Cejudo was merely cannon fodder for DJ’s legacy the first time around. If the Olympian got somewhat uncharacteristically blown out of the water the first time around, then the rematch was both an opportunity to demonstrate technical growth and maturity.
Cejudo’s strides from the first DJ fight to the second were demonstrable. As a much bigger puncher, Cejudo forced DJ to blitz into range and escape quickly for fear of being caught inside of Cejudo’s counter range. Instead of allowing Johnson to yank and command the clinch, whenever the two locked up, Cejudo immediately either ran his opponent into the fence or attempted a takedown. Despite DJ’s vast technical prowess, he wasn’t (and historically has never been) a bulletproof defensive wrestler, and it cost him.
Cejudo is still an Olympic gold medalist, in case you were wondering.
In the end, Henry was given the split decision and became the first person in history to hold an Olympic gold medal and a UFC belt. When asked, Cejudo said this victory was sweeter than any other, because he was forced to contend with the knowledge that someone was better than him. Depending on who you ask, Cejudo/Johnson II is either one of the most closely contested championship matches in UFC history, or one of the sport’s most egregious robberies. This discussion has become so pervasive that conversation about the fight itself has become secondary to the scoring criteria. Henry himself acknowledged that he knew the fight could have gone either way.
A lot of pundits and analysts were skeptical of the newly crowned champion after the Demetrious Johnson rematch, so Cejudo took it upon himself to emphatically silence the masses with an even more decisive victory. In January of 2019, the consensus greatest bantamweight of all time, TJ Dillashaw, dropped ten pounds off of his already-shredded frame to compete for the flyweight title against Cejudo. According to Dillashaw, he was being sent by Dana White to “kill the flyweights,” a move that the UFC brass had already begun by gutting most of the 125lb roster. Most were predicting a fun clash early, yet a clear victory for the bantamweight king the further the fight went.
Someone forgot to tell Cejudo about Dillashaw’s coronation, because in 32 seconds, the fight was over and Henry had scalped another ostensible Hall of Famer.
Similar to the Reis fight, Henry’s newfound ability to punch off of his kicks came in handy against the offensively diverse, but defensively shallow opponent. Dillashaw’s lauded footwork and angular attacks tend to upend the lack of layered head movement or pivoting inside. A straight-line attack was enough to catch the bantamweight great completely empty handed.
In an open stance engagement, Cejudo blasts a body kick to the open side. As he is retracting his leg, he is also rotating his hip backward to add weight behind the right hand. The punch is a half-beat behind the kick, but at the speed Cejudo is fighting at, it’s probably more like a quarter-beat to the masses.
Dillashaw’s weight cut became a talking point, as did the stoppage, but the results were undeniable. The speed differential was shocking, because out of Dominick Cruz, Cody Garbrandt, Renan Barao, John Lineker, and Raphael Assuncao, only Henry Cejudo was able to successfully blitz through TJ since John Dodson. Two split decision losses were TJ’s only hang ups since 2011, and Cejudo simply squished him like a bug.
“Part of the reason that makes TJ good is that he is a sore loser. So am I.”
Henry himself has openly talked about coming from behind to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Whether this is just being a slow starter, or Cejudo very literally needing to feel his opposition out before coming alive, this pattern began as early as his run through the 2008 Summer Olympics. In an interview with ESPN, Cejudo says, “Every match in the Olympics, I was down. Remember, in the Olympics you have to win four matches in one day. I was down in all three matches.”
All of this points to a very clear portrait, however. Cejudo’s archetype of ‘lose one; win two” is perfectly replicated in his career-defining victory over Marlon Moraes. In the first round, Cejudo was nearly immobilized by the Brazilian kickboxer, as his bladed stance opened up leg kicks and every time Cejudo opted to counter, he was outpositioned and outgunned. As a result, he was forced to fight the hardest leg kicker in the division from a mile away, and anytime he attempted to regain his long stance, he was kicked back into a square position.
Cejudo had no reliable way of closing Moraes down without either being countered with the left hook or kicked in the leg, so he opted to hang back and do everything in his power to avoid getting kicked in the head.
It may’ve been a stroke of genius or a desperate Hail Mary, but the clinch (once Cejudo’s Achilles heel against DJ) became the most authoritative phase of the fight. It wasn’t anything particularly scientific; Cejudo would punch with his right hand into the clinch, and convert it into either a collar tie or an underhook and begin slamming knees into Moraes’ midsection. If Cejudo had to concede double-underhooks, he would either smash Moraes to the fence or throw some Rick Story shots to the body (a particular favorite of this writer). None of it needed to be complicated, because it was just so goddamn effective. After one clinch exchange where Moraes was yanked around like a rag doll and ground into dust, the message was clear: Don’t lock up with Henry Cejudo.
The clinch differential between Cejudo and Moraes is roughly equivalent to the clinch differential between Johnson and Cejudo the first time around.
Cejudo made a few major adjustments to turn the fight around, but he also made a few smaller adjustments that went almost entirely unnoticed. In particular, Henry began figuring how the timing behind Moraes’ counters, so he did his best to throw, then duck his head behind his punch as Moraes threw back, and then throw again so catch Moraes in the middle of a combination. It was mechanically crude, but tactically effective. Since his left arm was totaled from Round 1, Cejudo switch hit against Moraes and masked his right hand as either a jolting jab from southpaw or a Karate-style rear hand straight from his chest. When Moraes was crumpled along the cage, Cejudo nearly finished the kickboxer with a brabo choke, his first submission attempt since Chris Cariaso in his second UFC fight.
Badass.
That may be the paradigm of who Henry Cejudo is. You don’t have to like his methods, but you cannot deny his grit. Like every great fighter, he assessed the threat in front of him, adjusted, and fought his way back into it, only Cejudo did so with quite a bit more hyperbole.
Form & Volition
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about strategic and tactical interplay in MMA. In a nutshell, the crux of my argument is that sheer technical depth in a fighter isn’t necessarily optimal to better strategic and tactical efficacy. Less skilled fighters can (and often do) beat deeper fighters if their approach is correct. Since the sport is accelerating at such a rapid rate, fighters who are technically competent everywhere are more of a commonplace, so strategic and tactical acuity can often be a more reliable winning combination that pure depth of skill. Basically, this quote here from Bloody Elbow analyst and Fight Site friend, Phil Mackenzie,
“Good MMA is less about being skilled at lots of separate areas of MMA (although that helps), but around making sure the approach is connected through the separate areas and phases which the fighter needs to operate in; and that it's built of high-percentage and multi-purpose tools,” (UFC 197 Post-fight Patterns: Good MMA).
In my article, I discussed why Rafael dos Anjos is something of a loathsome competitor in modern MMA, despite possessing a deep reservoir of technical skill. It’s not his skills that let him down; it’s his strategic efficacy and mental equanimity. If an opponent pushes RDA backward consistently, he will eventually concede to retreating in a straight line and his resets become slower. If an opponent mashes RDA into the cage and repeatedly attempts to take him down, he can be frustrated and stalled. If an opponent takes away one of RDA’s weapons, he isn’t good at determining ways to reintegrate those weapons. There is no doubt RDA is a formally great fighter, and there are plenty of elements of his game that should be studied and replicated. However, his confidence can be broken when his tools aren’t working and he has lost fights he unquestionably should’ve won just by fighting a poor fight.
Assuming RDA is on one end of the spectrum in terms of his form as a fighter, then Henry Cejudo is on the opposite. There still isn’t a single phase of MMA where Cejudo owns a distinct advantage in terms of technical depth. He possesses a tremendous base in wrestling, but he hasn’t employed it in MMA as well as less credentialed wrestlers have. His striking has improved under the tutelage of Eric Albarracin, employing a longer Karate-inspired kickboxing approach on the outside, but it’s yet to be seen if this is truly applicable (or at least optimal) against elite fighters. In the clinch, Cejudo is incredibly strong, but fundamentally lacking in terms of transitional attacks and creating small openings inside. Lesser athletes have been able to peck at Cejudo’s openings in transitions (Formiga) and sometimes shut him down altogether (Johnson). However, he knows exactly what he needs to do in a fight, and I trust him to do it.
Maybe this is sacrilegious to be admitting as an analyst, but if I were forced to choose between a formalist with great depth, but less volition (RDA) and a functionalist without the same depth, but with far more uncompromising initiative (Cejudo), I would pick the latter any given day of the week. I enjoy discussing the tactical wrinkles that technicians like RDA employ, but when the chips are down, I only trust one of these guys to win when they absolutely have to.
Cejudo will never be the razor-sharp, all-terrain, transitional threat that Demetrious Johnson was during his historic reign. In pretty much every phase of a fight, DJ was solid at the absolute worst and among the finest in the sport at best. His victories were more than simply thorough. They were holistic. Fighters were quickly discouraged by DJ’s relentless breadth of offensive options at range, in the clinch, and as a wrestler. Many opponents were defeated before even entering the cage, because they knew they just didn’t have any answers. (Cejudo himself was one of these sacrifices, his first time around.) Despite a myriad of challengers offering an entire spectrum of capabilities, DJ was always several steps ahead in multiple areas, so much so that it became uninteresting at times. The UFC ran out of viable contenders for DJ about halfway through his title reign, so promising, but nascent prospects were thrown into the deep end to quickly drown.
Needless to say, Cejudo has not and will not replicate DJ as a technician. His fights haven’t been technical problem-solving, so much as athletic equalizing. It’s not in Cejudo’s interests to systematically dismantle an opponent, remove their best weapons, and soundly outmaneuver them until a finish makes itself apparent. Instead, he’s turned himself into a suffocating, swarming puncher with unbelievable durability, relentlessness, and horsepower. As he’s developed, his punching power has shown itself to be an asset, despite not being an especially accurate or organic boxer. His wrestling pedigree means that offensive wrestling is practically useless and if an opponent stands their ground and locks up the clinch, Cejudo is a wrecking ball.
Another element of Cejudo’s game that doesn’t receive enough credit is his ability to shut down fighters from building offense against him. A lot was made of Moraes and Dillashaw’s deeper technical arsenals in comparison to Cejudo, but it’s notable that they couldn’t mount much offense in layers against the Olympian, because he simply punched through them. Demetrious Johnson kicked Cejudo’s body and legs quite a bit from range, but it is notable how uncomfortable DJ was in punching exchanges and how little offense he was able to mount in the clinch, with Cejudo’s greatly improved grip fighting and takedown threat. Moraes was kicking his legs to pieces and countering Henry inside until he was hit squarely on the chin and pinched between the clinch and the pocket. Fighters don’t like exchanging with Cejudo, because he’s just too willing. All of this, compounded with borderline inhuman durability means that Henry Cejudo is an athletic marvel who patches over the technical limitations of his game with force, initiative, and a surprising amount of strategy. I really like watching him fight.
Henry Cejudo may have been destined for great things in MMA from the moment the Olympic door closed, but his UFC run has proven more demanding than even he seemed to anticipate. After his first loss to DJ, his own coach said, “He needs a chip on his shoulder.” Nothing is given in combat sports, and Cejudo has learned and internalized that lesson at multiple points (in multiple sports) during his career, but one thing is for certain: With everything on the line, Henry Cejudo comes alive. In the face of adversity, his spirit isn’t broken, but galvanized. Failure has proven to be a springboard for Cejudo; a necessary shock to the system for his focus to intensify and his blinders to flip on.
If MMA is evolving in such a way that proper strategy and tactical efficacy can often usurp ostensible depth of skill, then anybody facing Henry Cejudo in the near future should be very, very concerned.