Henry Cejudo sees multiple options for his next fight, and one of them is UFC flyweight champion Brandon Moreno.
Moreno (21-6-2 MMA, 9-3-2 UFC) defends his title against Alexandre Pantoja on July 8 in the co-main event of UFC 290 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Moreno recently called out Cejudo (16-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC) for a non-title bantamweight bout, and the former UFC dual-champ is certainly open to it.
“If the UFC wants to show us the money after this fight if he does beat Pantoja, that we do a showdown between me and him,” Cejudo told ESPN.
Cejudo wouldn’t be willing to drop back down to flyweight to face Moreno – unless the UFC offered a handsome sum of money for it.
“No, bring him up and then who knows? If the UFC is willing to offer me a bunch of money to go down to 125, I’ll do it,” Cejudo said. “That’s not my plan. But if Brandon wants this smoke, and I know what I used to do to him in sparring. If he wants this smoke, if he gets past Pantoja, which I know he won’t, I’ll be willing to do that fight, too.
“A good old Mexican showdown and trust me, I want a piece of him. I called him out the first time. I wanted to fight him after he went over with Joseph Benavidez and trained with him and didn’t tell me, and I had to find out through social media.”
Cejudo’s bad blood with Moreno stems from a feeling of betrayal. Cejudo brought a young Moreno into his training camps, but when Moreno joined Season 24 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” Cejudo did not pick him to be on his team. As a result, Moreno wound up on the team of Cejudo’s rival Joseph Benavidez.
From that point on, their relationship turned sour. After the show, Moreno continued training with Benavidez, who fought Cejudo after the filming of the show. Years later, Cejudo mentored and trained Moreno’s rival Deiveson Figueiredo for his trilogy bout against Moreno in 2022.
“There’s bad blood there. There’s a great storyline,” Cejudo said. “Obviously he’s the baby face in the UFC. I’m the heel. Show me the money, let’s make it happen, baby.”
