After Demetrious Johnson lost a split decision to Henry Cejudo at UFC 227, many figured a trilogy would happen.
However, after the fight, Johnson was traded to ONE Championship to Ben Askren and the Johnson-Cejudo series is tied 1-1. Since the trade, Johnson has gone 3-1 in ONE Championship while Cejudo defended his flyweight title and then moved up and won and defended the bantamweight title and retired.
Although both men have gone their own ways, Demetrious Johnson is open to the trilogy happening, however, he hopes it would happen in ONE Championship.
“I believe he [Cejudo] is still under contract with the UFC. I mean, he did retire but that’s what happens when you retire – they freeze your contract. That’s what happened to Urijah Fabre, you know. I remember he expressed that he wanted to come and fight for ONE but his contract froze,” Johnson said to Sportskeeda. “And it’s just like Jorge Masvidal – he wants to go fight Jake Paul but they’re not going to let him do that. Especially as there are fights that the UFC can make for Henry Cejudo.
“He can come back and fight Petr Yan. He can fight Aljamain Sterling. If he wanted to come back down to 125lb he can do that as well,” Johnson continued. “I feel like when they let me out of my contract there was nothing left for me to do over there. For Henry Cejudo I feel there’s a lot more they could do with him than me when I was over there. But that’s my personal opinion.”
Although Johnson would be open to the trilogy with Cejudo, it’s unlikely the UFC would let “Triple C” out of his contract. He is currently retired, but his manager, Ali Abdelaziz, has said Cejudo would be willing to return full time after fighting Alexander Volkanovski at featherweight. However, the UFC hasn’t shown much interest in pulling the trigger on that superfight.
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