Henry Cejudo has the UFC bantamweight and featherweight championships on his mind ahead of his much-anticipated return to the Octagon.
The former two-division champion announced he was ending his retirement and re-entering the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) drug testing pool earlier this year. Once he completes six months of testing, Cejudo can compete again.
For his first appearance in over two years, Cejudo has set his sights on the winner of Aljamain Sterling vs. T.J. Dillashaw, the co-headliner of UFC 280 scheduled for Oct. 22 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. Though he and the ‘Funk Master’ have teased a potential fight on several occasions, ‘Triple C’ revealed recently he was more inclined to accept one against Dillashaw, should he defeat Sterling.
“I’m going for T.J.,” said Cejudo during a Q&A on his YouTube channel. “In the beginning, I was going for Aljo, but I don’t think Aljamain wants to fight me. And I think there’s a bigger storyline with me and T.J. So I come back, beat the brakes off of him, go up to 145 pounds and then beat the brakes out of Alexander ‘The Average’ [Volkanovski]. That’s the plan.”
Cejudo dispatched Dillashaw in 32 seconds for his first—and only—defense of the flyweight championship at UFC Brooklyn. Shortly after his loss to Cejudo, Dillashaw tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO) and was suspended for two years. In his return, the former UFC bantamweight champion reinserted himself into contention with a split decision win over Cory Sandhagen at UFC Vegas 32 last July.
As for his featherweight aspirations, Cejudo may have to wait a while for those to materialize. Alexander Volkanovski has hinted at moving up to lightweight, and the reigning UFC featherweight champion is now one step closer to doing that after he was tapped to serve as the backup fighter for the vacant title fight between Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev.
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