12up Logo

Henry Cejudo Giving Up UFC Flyweight Title Means 125-Pound Division is Still an Endangered Species

By Sam Dunn

UFC bantamweight and flyweight champion Henry Cejudo will relinquish the 125-pound belt.
UFC bantamweight and flyweight champion Henry Cejudo will relinquish the 125-pound belt. / Noel Vasquez/Getty Images

Triple C just lost a C! Reports dropped Thursday night via MMAJunkie that the UFC was vacating Henry Cejudo's flyweight title. The champ, who also holds the bantamweight belt, quickly refuted the initial story, insisting that he's relinquishing the 125-pound strap voluntarily.

But no matter how it's happening -- Cejudo is known for his wrestling heel-level bluster and fabulism, after all -- the man who knocked the legendary Demetrious Johnson off his flyweight perch will be champ no more after one single flyweight title defense. And that tells you everything you need to know about the failing health of this weight division.

While still the duly-anointed bantamweight king following his gutsy win against Marlon Moraes in June, Cejudo carried a lot on his shoulders even before taking the 135-pound belt. After all, he was the one who unseated Demetrious Johnson for flyweight glory following a legendary run that included an amazing 11 title defenses. Hell, Cejudo is the only man besides Mighty Mouse ever to hold the belt at all. But after the latter's departure for Asia's ONE Championship in the UFC's infamous "trade" for Ben Askren, the entire weight division stood on shaky ground.

Now, with the love-to-hate-him Triple C almost certainly no longer interested in making weight at 125 anymore, we're in danger of ending up right back where we were when former bantamweight champ TJ Dillashaw made the surprising decision to move down to challenge Cejudo 11 months ago. That move was a creative one to say the least, and meant to inject some much-needed life into a flailing flyweight class that was more or less bleeding out. Things got a whole lot worse when Dillashaw got knocked out within seconds and later got suspended for a positive PED test.

Yes, folks, that weight cut is hard. But this smallest of divisions, if it's even going to exist, needs not just big fighters, but big names.

And losing Cejudo (presumably forever) means that flyweight -- no offense to Joseph Benavidez or Jussier Formiga or Deiveson Figueiredo -- brings about a moment of reckoning for a weight division not far removed from being on life support.