Alexander Volkanovski will believe Henry Cejudo’s apparent mixed martial arts (MMA) return when he sees it.
Immediately following Volkanovski’s UFC 273 fourth-round technical knockout of “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung this past weekend (watch highlights), Cejudo took to Twitter declaring that he’s officially returning to the United State Anti Doping Agency (USADA) testing pool, which all UFC fighters are required to be in to compete.
Inspired by the action at UFC 273 to return, “Triple C” still has the goal of becoming a three-division champion by snatching Volkanovski’s Featherweight crown.
“I’ll take him seriously once he’s in the pool,” Volkanovski told The MMA Hour. “But he still needs to prove himself in our division, right? Why am I gonna waste energy? Look, I probably can right now because we don’t have any clear guy. So maybe that’s why you’re asking and we’re even talking about it, I guess. I’m not gonna take it too seriously whether he’s talking about going to Bantamweight or I don’t know.”
Cejudo retired in May 2020 after a successful Bantamweight title defense against arguably the division’s all-time best, Dominick Cruz. While his final two outings came at 135-pounds, Cejudo wasn’t unfamiliar with the division having competed there earlier in his career. Ultimately, he pursued greatness at 125-pounds first where he went on to become UFC Flyweight champion by dethroning Demetrious Johnson in Aug. 2018.
“I respect the guy. He does his thing and all that, I don’t hate the guy. He’s got a lot of great accomplishments and I respect him as a fighter and as an athlete. At the same time, how long has he been calling me out? He was giving ‘Zombie’ about getting the fight and I pretty much — all these guys were ‘Oh, ‘Zombie,’ rah, rah, rah.’ Then all of the sudden he’s in his corner. I was like, mate… The ‘Zombie’ is pretty much bangin’ ya, you know what I mean? But now he’s jumping on the bandwagon to get a little bit of attention. He wasn’t even in the testing pool but he was sitting there like he couldn’t believe I didn’t choose him. Mate, you know you can’t even fight, why you wasting your breath? And why should I waste my breath on it?”
For “The Great,” Volkanovski’s win over Jung was his third consecutive UFC title defense.
