Henry Cejudo's Call for Superfight Was Bold, but Mighty Mouse Deserves a Rematch

Henry Cejudo pulled off the seemingly impossible Saturday at UFC 227, defeating Demetrious Johnson via split decision to win the men's flyweight championship and end one of the most dominant title runs in MMA history.

Somehow, that wasn't good enough for Cejudo.

Moments after the judges' verdict was announced (48-47, 47-48, 48-47) to a partisan crowd at Staples Center in Los Angeles, Cejudo called for a shot at the men's bantamweight crown too.

"America's all about winners," Cejudo told UFC color commentator Joe Rogan inside the cage. " ... I want to fight the [champion] at 135 pounds. I deserve it. [I was] Olympic champion, now UFC champion. Now give me the belt at 135 pounds."

In the immediate aftermath of a historic upset, a win that pulled Cejudo to 1-1 against Johnson, this was a bold play.

It had long been the UFC's wish to see Johnson move up in weight for a superfight against its 135-pound champion, but the two sides could never come to terms on an agreement. Here was Cejudo—flyweight champ for all of about two minutes—already offering to take on the mission Johnson was thought to have balked at.

As luck would have it, TJ Dillashaw retained his bantamweight crown with a first-round TKO over nemesis Cody Garbrandt in UFC 227's main event. Dillashaw seemed eager for a meeting with Cejudo moments following his own big win.

"Bring it, baby," he told Rogan in response to Cejudo's challenge. "Let's do this."

Not so fast, though, you guys.

Clearly, there will some controversy surrounding the decision in the flyweight title fight, and if anyone deserves a rubber match with Cejudo, it's Johnson.

For much of their madcap 25 minutes together, it was Mighty Mouse who appeared to be leading the dance. The longtime champion pestered Cejudo with kicks to the legs and body, landed the crisper strikes on the feet and foiled the majority of the Olympic gold medalist's attempts to keep him on the mat.

Yet, Cejudo did score with a few timely takedowns, and he consequently won.

He took down Johnson with a little more than a minute remaining in the second round and rode the position to the bell, likely becoming the first man to take so much as a round from Johnson since Tim Elliott did it in December 2016.

After Johnson won the third, Cejudo again took down the champion with two minutes remaining in the fourth.

With the fight even headed into the final stanza, he scored with the same inside trip with 1:15 on the clock. Though Johnson got back to his feet, the two men brawled to the final bell, with Cejudo slightly getting the edge in that exchange.

Those moments of sporadic offense proved enough for two of the three ringside judges to give Cejudo the nod.

"It was a great fight," the newly dethroned Johnson told Rogan afterward. "Henry Cejudo is tough. I had a great game plan. I was really trying to bang out his legs. ... He's a big dude. Every time he would get on top of me, he would just hold, hold, hold."

Following Johnson's first loss since 2011—and his first defeat at 125 pounds—some observers questioned the outcome and called for a third bout with Cejudo.

For years, Johnson was arguably the UFC's best overall fighter, though his reign never did big business at the box office.

Nonetheless, he came into this second meeting with Cejudo riding a 13-fight win streak and in search of his 12th straight title defense. The first time he and Cejudo met, at UFC 197 in April 2016, Johnson crafted a TKO victory with a series of knees and punches just two minutes, 49 seconds into the first round.

Leading up to that bout, Cejudo was unbeaten but just 10 fights and three years into a professional MMA career. In terms of pure athleticism, he was regarded as perhaps the biggest up-and-coming threat to Johnson's title reign, but doubts lingered about whether he could close the experience gap.

After a second straight loss, this time via split decision to Joseph Benavidez in December 2016, Cejudo rebounded with a pair of impressive wins over Wilson Reis and Sergio Pettis during 2017. Given the relatively shallow flyweight talent pool and Johnson's relentless dominance over the division, that was good enough to earn the 31-year-old Cejudo a second shot at the title.

Once there, he made the most of the opportunity.

He is just the second men's flyweight champion in UFC history. It's possible the Los Angeles native could be a more marketable titleholder for the promotion than Johnson was. As the one-time youngest Olympic gold medalist in U.S. wrestling's history and having recently survived a near fatal fire at his home, Cejudo's got a pretty good story to tell.

That story shouldn't include a superfight, however. Not yet.

Cejudo owes Johnson a trilogy fight. If he makes it through that with the title still around his waist, then—and only then—it will be time to call Dillashaw.