Henry Cejudo Scoffs at Resumes of Bantamweight Contenders Aljamain Sterling, Petr Yan

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Henry Cejudo has made it a focus to take out as many legends as possible during his championship reign, but that agenda has left a few deserving contenders out in the cold.

During a conference call to promote UFC 249, the reigning bantamweight champion revealed that Dominick Cruz was always a priority opponent — even before Cejudo requested a fight with Jose Aldo following the Brazilian’s narrow loss to Marlon Moraes at UFC 245. Ultimately, Cejudo was unable to defend his belt against Aldo (They were originally scheduled to fight the now-postponed UFC 250 in Sao Paulo) after the Nova Uniao star was unable to obtain a visa to travel to the United States.

“Dominick was my first choice,” Cejudo said. “Since the beginning I wanted to fight him. I thought it was a great storyline. We’re both from Arizona. He’s a former champ. I beat the No. 1 contender Marlon Moraes. There really wasn’t a concrete No. 1 contender after I beat Marlon Moraes. My original plan was to fight him, but then I saw the fact that Jose Aldo did a good job with Marlon Moraes, who was a No. 1 contender. I decided to go with Aldo, but I told Dominick, ‘Stay on deck, if anything happens you’re the guy I want next.’

“It just turned out to be that Jose ‘Baldo’ couldn’t get a visa and Dominick Cruz was able to squeak back in. He was always part of the plan in the first place.”

Although he is recognized as one of the greatest bantamweights in the sport’s history, Cruz has not fought in nearly four years and is coming off a loss in his last Octagon appearance, when he relinquished the 135-pound belt to Cody Garbrandt at UFC 206. That, of course, does not deter Cejudo, who appears to be far more interested in name value than recent credentials.

“I’m on a legacy rampage, and I feel like Dominick is one of the guys that I can remember that made a big name, that kind of paved the road for a lot of us little guys,” Cejudo said. “That’s another reason why I wanted to fight him. I want to continue to add big names to my hit list and continue this legacy rampage.”

There are a few ranked competitors at 135 pounds that would probably take exception to Cejudo’s point of view that there were no clear-cut contenders in the division for the Olympic gold medalist to face. Two of those, Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan, have been quite vocal regarding their displeasure with the current bantamweight pecking order.

Sterling has won six of his last seven UFC bouts, while Yan is thus far unbeaten in six Octagon appearances. Still, Cejudo had nothing positive to say about either man on Tuesday.

“I’m gonna tell them to wait for the king and tell them to bend the knee,” he said. “Aljamain Sterling got knocked out by the guy [Moraes] that I knocked out. Wait in line. And then Petr Yan needs to learn better English, he absolutely sucks. He can’t beat a 41-year-old [Urijah Faber] and expect to get a title shot. That’s just ridiculous.”