Mailbag: Is Henry Cejudo’s career at the UFC Seattle?

What is really online for Henry Cejudo at the main UFC Seattle event on Saturday? How did Jared Cannonier succeeded in winning a 40-year-old mature old age last weekend? And will the addition of Chael Sonnen and Daniel Cormier be sufficient to revive the audience of the longtime reality TV show of the UFC?

All this and more in this week’s postal bag. To ask your own question, hit @benfowlkesmma Or @ benfowlkes.bsky.social.

First of all, let’s take the denigration of Cejudo to remind us that the two fights he has lost since his return from retirement were against the current champion of Coq Merab Dvalishvili and the former Aljamain Sterling champion. Losing against these guys does not make you a garbage fighter. In fact, they are both really good. I would also say that Dvalishvili’s fight was quite fun to look at, mainly because of him who picked up Cejudo and wore him like an unruly little one. But again.

Cejudo’s initial retirement never seemed so sincere. He left for a double champion and almost immediately started to drop clues that the UFC could hold it with more money. The problem is that the UFC never seemed interested in recovering it. The CEO of the UFC, Dana White, seemed to have already evolved when he presented himself at the post-Combat press conference.

So of course, he was still going to come back. And when he did, he obtained two very difficult reservations right right away. Now he is 38 years old and far from the affirmation of the title. He is also, for the first time since his return, faced with an opponent who doesn’t Have a super hard wrestling background. This should be an opportunity for him – if he still has something left in the tank.

Don’t get me wrong, Song Yadong is a good versatile fighter and a talented young athlete. But the Cejudo of five years ago would have crossed him. If he cannot do this now, he should probably consider going back to the rocking chair.

Absolutely not, but I’m going to look at some protruding facts. That is to say, the protruding facts of Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen Coaching, joking and doing all the other things. It’s just the show itself for which I have no interest, mainly because it is always the same thing that we have already seen a million times.

In fact, I really like the decision to have Cormier and Sonnen Coach this season of “The Ultimate Fighter”. On the one hand, they both have a real interest in coaching. It is not only something that they are forced to do to promote an upcoming fight. They are also both charismatic and fun to watch, which helps.

But also? In this way, we do not come out two best rotation fighters for the reality series, everything to accumulate a fight that can even occur or not. It alone is a victory for “Tuf”.

As a gentle gentleman, I love to see the fighters go up the chronometer with a little of this veteran. If you stay in this sport long enough, you will look at some of your physical abilities flow or at least decrease. These are only the facts. Unless you can replace it with acquired knowledge thanks to the experience, you will not last.

I think OVEEM is at the end of her career as a good example. He could no longer manage only on physical capabilities. His game had to change, and it did. He became a more balanced fighter and a much more intelligent fighter. He won more fights than a man in his right – even if they were not as exciting as they had been in his youth.

If Dricus du Plessis can pass through Khamzat Chimaev – and just there is a big Si, not only for him but for anyone in this division – then we will have to start talking about him as the biggest weight of the post- Anderson Silva era. And that’s how, SO wild for me.

As for your question, I think Alexandre Pantoja and Merab Dvalishvili could settle for the reigns of long titles. Pantoja is already short of challengers. Dvalishvili has just educated his greatest threat. So now what?

In addition, if Ilia Topuria did not look at a weight class jump, I would say that he maintains the featherweight title as long as he wants. And if Alex Pereira can reject the challenge of Magomed Ankalaev, I do not see that there is someone to a light heavyweight which can seriously challenge this version of him.

Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and there are only an hour of them looking at each other before noding with his head respectfully and leaving.

About 4,000. But they have to come in the form of red wine.

We still do not know with certainty whether or not the GFL will manage to organize a single event. Everything at this stage at this stage remains purely speculative. Let’s see if someone really puts GFL gloves and enter a GFL cage. So maybe we’ll have an idea of ​​where it’s okay.

I am so old that I rented the first UFC events on VHS of the local successful video around 1997. I was instantly captivated by the very concept of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and I wanted to learn it. I finally had a chance when I went to the University of the State of San Diego a few years later, and it turned out to be my gateway drug in the world of MMA.

I entered a little kickboxing and boxing, but the grapple was always my first love. I moved to Montana for higher education in 2004 and started training with a local MMA team. Later, I wrote a story for the weekly newspaper on the first MMA event in our city. It was the first piece of writing linked to the MMA for which I have never been paid. I think I obtained about $ 250, which had delighted me enough.

At the time, I didn’t think it was the start of a career because there was really no career on MMA. The main sports points of sale have mainly chosen to ignore it. I remember that I wrote an e-mail to ESPN once asking why they did not cover the MMA and they sent me the end of the evening calendar for the old kickboxing matches and the karate demos. I was very lucky that I am somehow around and that I was already writing on this subject for my own pleasure, just as the media began to wake up with the existence of MMA. I continue to be very lucky to still have a job to write about it. Some days I can barely believe it.