Henry Cejudo and TJ Dillashaw both displayed a willingness to engage in a superfight after their wins at UFC 227. While weird and strange, it actually can work.
Demetrious Johnson defended his UFC flyweight championship 11 times, the most in UFC history. Having been champion for over 2,000 days, he absolutely deserves an immediate rematch. However, after announcing that Mighty Mouse is likely dealing with major injuries after the fight that include a torn LCL and a broken foot, it’s likely that Johnson won’t be back for quite some time. Especially considering that he’s also going home to his wife who’s going to have another child and will want to spend some time with them.
With all that being said, Henry Cejudo and TJ Dillashaw engaging in a fight makes a weird bit of sense in the grand scheme of things. Just off the top, if Johnson can’t comeback immediately to fight Cejudo, there’s no real contender for Cejudo to fight at flyweight. He’s already defeated Sergio Pettis in dominating fashion, knocked out Wilson Reis among other contenders, and the one man with a win over him that isn’t Johnson just lost. That man being Joseph Benavidez.
Then there’s the issue at bantamweight, there’s no real contender that sticks out. Raphael Assuncao is currently on a good win streak, and has a win over Dillashaw already. However, for whatever reason, it seems the UFC will never give Assuncao a title fight and after being dominated at UFC 200 by Dillashaw in the rematch, it’s unlikely he’ll get the fight without a couple of other big wins. After all, he only has two top 10 wins in this streak, and both are split decisions that could’ve gone the other way.
The other real contender is Marlon Moraes. Moraes is currently on a three-fight win streak, with giant knockout wins over Aljamain Sterling and Jimmie Rivera in that streak, he also arguably has better and more impressive wins than Assuncao. However the big issue is that he lost to Raphael Assuncao at UFC 212. You can’t really have Moraes jump Assauncao for a title shot when he lost to him. So what do you do? Put them in a rematch where the winner gets a title shot afterwards and clear up that situation.
So with all that being said, why not make Cejudo-Dillashaw? Henry Cejudo is coming off a giant win over Johnson and if Johnson is out why not make that fight? Especially with a couple of cards coming up that don’t have a main event such as 230 and 231, you can easily place that fight there and get some hype and make it a big card. That obviously requires them to both be healthy and make it to the fight.
All that being said, it’s doubtful they will make the fight, but it would make sense given the current situation.
