How great is Henry Cejudo: TFS Staff debates the all-time P4P ranking of 'The Messenger'
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
When Henry Cejudo announced his retirement from MMA after his victory over Dominick Cruz at UFC 249, many fans were shocked. We at The Fight Site were as well! But of course, our minds turned immediately to, ‘if he really has retired, how will the history books remember him’?
Whether his retirement will stick or not, we have a legitimate list of MMA achievements and a quality resume to analyse. So we decided to have a staff debate as to where we would rank ‘The Messenger’ in the pantheon of MMA greats.
Note: We are only taking Cejudo’s MMA achievements into account, not his Olympic gold medal.
Sriram Muralidaran: Cejudo's one of the weirdest fighters to contextualize in MMA, even before his retirement; in a lot of ways, it was difficult to know how good he was, and any answer would have to heavily feature his insane coachability and unmatched attributes. I'd argue that his "run" hasn't really been as impressive as the names on it imply (even though Formiga and Pettis leave his resume independently fairly deep), but if I were to try to pin down Cejudo's legacy, it'd probably just center on the ridiculousness of the Moraes fight. Johnson was an egregious robbery for my money, Dillashaw was at a weight class where he looked like the Cryptkeeper, and Cruz was a Bisping-level choice of title defense, but if anything comes close to justifying that, it's that he took out 135's most potent sniper while injured with nothing but grit.
Philippe Pocholle-Marchetti: High. Henry’s most important fights are all full of controversy and specific context. This goes for his win over DJ (I struggle to give more than one round to an improved Cejudo), the TJ fight (Cut to 125) but also his loss to Joseph Benavidez in which I thought was a clear victory for Cejudo. So, The best victory of Henry’s career is Marlon Moraes. That fight is Cejudo’s legacy in my opinion. Marlon crushed everyone before that and Cejudo fought his way back despite getting hurt and injuring himself. Massive victory to become a two weight world champion. His final fight is a good win over an old legend that didn’t look that great. Still a solid win. So to me Henry is one of the best fighter of the lower weight class, as he beat the very good Jussier Formiga, should have a victory over Joseph Benavidez, had a fantastic fight with one of the goats DJ, Then destroyed another all time great (TJ) had the best fight of his life against Marlon Moraes and beat an old legend. Not too bad. He’ll be in my 15-20 range all time great. Could have been much higher if he’d have fought a Petr Yan, an Aljo, an Assuncao or a Munhoz somewhere along the way but still Henry’s accomplishment and improvement make him in that 15-20 spot for me.
Ed Gallo: In a literal sense, I have Cejudo ranked #14 all-time. He has a solid handful of high quality wins, and one or two that I would categorize as great wins. His legacy, in terms of wins, is hurt a bit by the dodgy nature of the Johnson decision, but he does get a bit of padding considering there’s an argument that the Benavidez fight could have gone his way. Given the rising level of competition in the UFC, and the fact that he won’t be facing the actual top contenders at bantamweight, I doubt his position in the top 20 holds. Wins over Yan, Sandhagen and Sterling would have given him a claim at a long-term top 10 spot, but I understand avoiding that challenge if your heart isn’t in it anymore.
Danny Martin: Henry Cejudo is one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, and no amount of (admittedly sensible) criticism is going to erode that fact. That said, I am very bummed that we won’t be able to watch any more of him, because his last few fights were a synthesis of his innate physical gifts and actual strategy, netting victories over opponents that Cejudo shouldn’t have had a prayer against on paper. Nonetheless, if I am evaluating off of my own all-time great list, Cejudo was already rounding out at #19, but I’m sure there’s a more defensible spot for him in the top 15 than Yoel Romero at this point.
Mateusz Fenrych: I have no qualms with talking up Cejudo’s quality as a fighter. My colleagues have already touched upon the troubles and caveats that one must attach to his run since winning his first belt, but since losing so comprehensively to Demetrious Johnson until his apparent retirement, he has shown a rapid rate of improvement in both the well-rounded nature of his game and his ability to put smart game plans to work.
OK, against Marlon Moraes, he got chewed up for fully seven minutes, almost losing a leg at the knee, but he was able to adapt to Moraes weaknesses rather than battling through his strengths and came out a winner in one of the more absurd turnarounds I’ve witnessed in a title fight.
His improvement was at its starkest in his rematch with p4p contender Johnson; as with several of my colleagues, I believe Cejudo lost that fight, and not all that ambiguously either. But, he did not look out of his depth at all, which he did the first time around.
Questions of motivation had followed Cejudo for a while, but it was still a surprise when he announced his retirement. Still a relatively young fighter, it really feels like he has so much more to give. There was certainly no hint of any physical decline; quite the opposite. At times, he’s seemed indomitable.
But, it’s hard to say what legacy he will leave. I can’t help but get the sense that he won’t leave the greatest cultural impression.
The greatest icons bring something new to their era; Anderson Silva brought (for his time) a new level of striking; GSP rose to the top, changed his game and dominated for years; Jose Aldo reigned for ten years, decimating every wrestler thrown his way and picking apart everyone else too. Fedor, well, was Fedor, the impassive, distant Emperor; one of the first progenitors of this modern, cohesive MMA fighting skillset.
Cejudo meanwhile, while very, very good, doesn’t appear to have pushed a particular aspect of fighting forward. Nobody is whispering reverently about his anti-wrestling, his combination boxing, his footwork, longevity or new levels of professionalism.
I’m going to miss the little fella, but almost more for what he didn’t achieve than what he did.
Kyle McLachlan: Rankings and historical context are kinda’ my thing, and I can’t see Cejudo in the top twenty of all time. You might be wondering how a two-weight champ could not be in the top twenty of all time, and I get it, it’s an amazing achievement on paper.
The fighter I’d compare him to would be B.J Penn (relatively shallow resume, two-weight champ) and for me Penn has more going for him: Cejudo’s best wins obviously have a degree of controversy, and while he faced more modern and technical fighters, Penn has him on ‘pound-for-pound achievements’ in terms of the weird shit he did going up in weight and whatnot. And of course, there’s always Randy Couture, who got zero mentions in our individual top 20 lists, yet is a two-weight UFC champ with wins over Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, Tim Sylvia, Vitor Belfort, Gabriel Gonzaga, Kevin Randleman, Pedro Rizzo, and Maurice Smith. Sure, both Penn and Couture have horrendous numbers in the loss column, but I wonder whether Cejudo’s win-loss ratio would look half as pretty if he continued to fight and fought the likes of Yan, Sandhagen, Sterling, and I’m still not 100% sure you can find three rounds for him in the Johnson rematch that would allow me to eliminate any cries of robbery based on the eye test.
But I was really excited for Cejudo turning over. I remember watching some footage of him as an amateur boxer, and was there when he missed weight, disappointing me as someone who wanted him to succeed. I remember disliking him once he started putting on this awful ‘King of Cringe’ persona. I remember being annoyed when Johnson lost the rematch against him.
But all in all, taking all of that into consideration he did well for himself. If I was ranking the top 30 mixed martial artists of all time tomorrow, he’d certainly feature somewhere between 25-30 I think.
All in all a mixture of disappointment and confounding my expectations. Weird fighter to assess, certainly.
Ben Kohn: I see exactly where Kyle is coming from with the BJ Penn comparison. Cejudo is, and I believe Phil and I discussed this, always going to be overrated or underrated by virtually everyone. Looking at his resume without context, which will happen the further we get from it, will lead him to being ranked very highly. Formiga, Pettis, DJ, TJ, Moraes, and Cruz is a ridiculous resume from a name perspective.
However, adding context muddles things. He lost a decision to Joe-B he arguably won, TJ had the weight cut that took away from the win, he should have lost the DJ rematch, and Cruz was old as hell. I can also see people detracting from his Pettis win if he goes on some big run post UFC release too.
So the Penn comparison is somewhat apt. Two division champ, short lived time at the top, weird surrounding circumstances too.
Where I think we have to make the distinction is the level of guys he’s been fighting. Hughes and GSP are the best guys Penn ever faced, and he’s 1-3 against them when it counts (Hughes in the third fight was far removed from his prime). Sanchez, and Stevenson do not compare in any iteration to DJ, Moraes, or even old Cruz. Sherk is his best LW win I’d say and it was a Sherk coming off a year suspension for PED usage, and who’d retire after 3 more fights.
Cejudo’s placement among the greats is something that won’t be settled comfortably if he never fights again. For me personally, I can say he is among the top 20 MMA fighters of all time. Not high on the list, but 15-20 is a fair place to have him I think.
Kyle: I’m gonna’ go on record and say Hughes, Uno, Gomi, Florian, match up with Henry’s best wins, on the sheer basis that I’m not sold on him actually winning the Johnson rematch. That’s just for me though, it’s perfectly fine for anyone to disagree.
Going based on the votes we had from contributors when we did the 20 Greatest Mixed Martial Artists of All-Time series (and allowing for new contributors such as Ben above who would have Cejudo top twenty and compensating for the votes Henry lose out on by a few guys not contributing to the site any more who did place him) I think Cejudo would land somewhere between 15-25 next time we run the series. Perhaps when that time comes the dust will settle, some guys will be lower on him than they are the time this article was published, and perhaps others (even myself) might view him in a more favourable light. And I think your opinion of Cejudo’s ‘greatness’ relative to other legends of the sport mainly rests on how you see the rematch with Demetrious Johnson.
So, whether I have him there or not, it’s likely that The Fight Site consensus rankings would say that yes, Henry Cejudo is an all-time great.
And of course…he might fight again!