Written by Henry Cejudo | Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Henry Cejudo wants Sean O’Malley next.
This past weekend, O’Malley lost his bantamweight title to Merab Dvalishvili, losing a unanimous decision in the main event of UFC 306. Cejudo has a long-standing rivalry with O’Malley and also predicted Dvalishvili to win, so “Triple C” was quite please with how things turned out at UFC 306.
“What can I say? I predicted these things,” Cejudo said on his Pound 4 Pound podcast. “Sean is not accustomed to going five rounds, and he is not accustomed to people on his legs. I just felt like – I still go back and say, hey, that fight with Aljamain Sterling, that was a fluke too.
“Aljamain was still in that fight, and people thought I was just hating. No, I’ve been in there with Merab. I did a whole lot better than Sean did when I fought Merab. I mean, I took down Merab. Merab is lucky that I had that groin injury… And I still plan on running it back.
“Either way, Sean O’Meth-ly got his ass kicked for five rounds and I can’t wait to get him next!”
Cejudo and O’Malley have exchanged social media insults for a while now, with O’Malley even trolling Cejudo’s podcast ahead of UFC 306. And now that O’Malley is no longer champion, a fight between the two is substantially more possible. But Cejudo has his doubts it will happen.
“I personally would love to fight him,” Cejudo said. “I think with all the trolling that we have done to each other — we both live in the same damn city — but I just don’t think that he’s going to want to fight me. Particularly right after this performance that Merab did to him.
“Like I said, Merab was lucky that I was hurt in that fight. I had no conditioning due to not being able to wrestle because of a torn groin. But I took my chances because I wanted to fight him, I wanted to fight at the Sphere, I wanted to beat him up in front of everybody. But that’s not the case.
“So I think moving forward, if Sean O’Malley is willing and wants to fight this troll who’s the true king of Arizona, well then here I am. But if not, I’m making my way back down to 125 pounds, because I’m not going to waste my time.”
But if Cejudo really wants to fight O’Malley, he’ll have to wait quite a while. Following his loss, “Sugar” revealed he intends to take an extended break from fighting to repair a torn labrum in his hip he suffered ahead of UFC 306.