Former middleweight champion, Michael Bisping, doesn’t favour Henry Cejudo’s chances if the Olympian returns to face featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.
Cejudo announced his retirement from the sport on May 9th 2020, following his victory over Dominick Cruz at UFC 249. Two years after hanging up the gloves, the former two-division champion announced that he had re-entered the U.S Anti-Doping Agency drug-testing pool and wants to fight featherweight king Volkanosvki upon his return.
Bisping, now retired, turned analyst and commentator, believes Cejudo would suffer from a notable size disadvantage if he were to square off against Volkanovski.
Michael Bisping Has His Say
“Yes, great, dream big, the problem is you aren’t big,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “You’re not big enough to fight Alexander Volkanovski, I don’t believe so. You were a 125-er for a reason, you became the champion there. You stepped up to 135, that’s only a 10 pound increase. Stepping up to 45, that’s a 20 pound increase (and) when you’re a shorter guy that’s a large percent of your body weight and we saw a picture of him recently looking a little chubby, a little out of shape. Yes, he can get heavy, he can probably get up to 160, who knows? even heavier, but is that your optimal weight?
“There’s a reason why he picked 125, there’s a reason why he went to 35. Making 125 was probably very hard, 35 was probably his natural weight (but) 45, things start to get out of the desired weight, out of the optimal point, where you’re carrying extra weight which is gonna slow you down which is ultimately gonna make you weaker. In the short term make you stronger, make you heavier but as the fight progresses and you’re getting tired and you’re carrying all that extra weight around your mid section and what not, that becomes a pain in the ass.”
Henry Cejudo Back to Action?
Volkanovski is fresh off his best performance to date over a durable Chan Sung Jung at UFC 273 this past Saturday. The 33-year-old expressed some interest in testing his skill-set in the lightweight division to earn “champ champ” status while the featherweight division sorts itself out.
“The Count” praised Volkanovski’s skills highly, reminding viewers of the names on his forever growing résumé. With many queuing up to take on Volkanovski, Bisping doesn’t imagine Cejudo is the one to dethrone the featherweight champion.
“Alexander Volkanovski is the man,” Bisping added. “He’s beaten Max Holloway twice, took out ‘Korean Zombie’ in style, made it look easy. Prior to that Brian Ortega, what a fight, what a performance. The man’s incredible. Volkanovski has a record of 23-1, I don’t think Henry Cejudo would be the guy.”
What do you make of the situation? Do you think Cejudo could make it a competitive matchup and attain gold across three different weight classes?
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Featured image credits to Embed from Getty Images
