UFC Flyweight Champion Henry Cejudo may move up to bantamweight in an attempt to claim the 135 pound title and Aljamain Sterling would like to welcome Cejudo to the weight class.
“I look at Cejudo, he’s trying to swim with the big boys,” Sterling told MMA Fighting. “He beat a depleted T.J. Dillashaw. Everyone advised T.J. not to cut that extra 10 pounds. If you look at him during that fight week, there was a picture where he had a whole table filled with, like, 20 bottles of supplements and pills. God knows what was in those pills and that was supposedly the way for him to get down safely to 125. I tell you, I cut down to 135, people think I’m huge for the weight, and I don’t take none of that shit. So he’s pumping himself up over beating a 125 T.J. Dillashaw. It’s not the same fighter. If he wants to come up and get smacked up by a couple of real big boys and swim with the sharks, he’s gonna want to go back running down to 125 real soon. … Let Cejudo come up. His wrestling’s only going to take him so far before the body weight and everything starts to play a factor. Honestly, I would like to be the guy to welcome him to this division. Welcome to 135, champ.”
Cejudo has previously defeated Dillashaw, but that bout at UFC Fight Night Brooklyn was contested at flyweight.
Sterling also wants to be one of the fighters to fight for the now vacated UFC Bantamweight Title.
“I don’t know, I feel like I’m at a strip club being teased by the UFC right now,” Sterling said. “They’re telling us one thing and then they’re doing this other thing. Are we getting rid of 125. Is there a clear stance so that these guys know what’s going to happen? 125 needs a home. No doubt about that. For them to just cut the division is absolutely insane and completely unfair to those guys. And I’m not saying that just because I want the title shot. If I was a ‘25er and I could have made the weight and that could have been an option for me, I would be pretty pissed about that. I think if they just make a clear stance so that we can figure this out and get our lives going again at 135. It’s just been kind of chaotic and madness with the automatic rematch with T.J. and Cody and this superfight at 125, so the division’s been pretty stagnant for a very, very long time. You’ve got new blood, fresh faces at the top of the game, and they’re all exciting. Pedro’s exciting, I think I’m exciting if I do say so myself, Marlon Moraes is exciting, he’s taking out top guys one-by-one. And to have Cejudo come and just jump in weight classes when he still has work to do at ‘25, he lost to Joseph Benavidez. I just want to know what’s going on.”
The UFC has yet to make an announcement regarding the future of the bantamweight title.
