Henry Cejudo isn’t sure Alexandre Pantoja can remain UFC flyweight champion for long with his fighting style.
Pantoja (25-5 MMA, 9-3 UFC) outlasted Brandon Moreno (21-6-2 MMA, 9-3-2 UFC) in a five-round war to claim the 125-pound title in this past Saturday’s UFC 290 co-headliner at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Cejudo praised Pantoja for fighting with a lot of heart but questions his strategy.
“What scares me with Pantoja a bit is his style of fighting,” Cejudo said on his YouTube channel. “Pantoja’s style of fighting, man, it’s – will a guy like that be able to last and be able to have six to seven to eight title defenses? Or is it short-lived? Can Pantoja become a little more technical defensively? Can he do a really good job of that?”
Cejudo pointed to Pantoja’s aggression costing him against former champion Deiveson Figueiredo, who was able to land big shots in a Fight of the Night decision win in 2019.
“I go back, and I watch that fight with Brandon, and it’s the same thing in the first and second fight that they’ve had,” Cejudo continued. “He takes a lot of hits. He got hit by Brandon quite a bit, and a guy like Deiveson Figueiredo, when he fought him, it was a good stylistic matchup for him (Figueiredo) because Deiveson focused on power, and Deiveson actually really did hurt him. When you hurt somebody, you slow them down.”
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