Despite their past rivalry, Henry Cejudo thinks T.J. Dillashaw did enough to beat Cory Sandhagen.
Former two-time UFC bantamweight champion Dillashaw (16-4 MMA, 12-4 UFC) returned from a two-year U.S. Anti-Doping Agency suspension to squeak past Sandhagen at UFC on ESPN 27 this past Saturday, and unlike many, Cejudo thinks the judges got it right.
Cejudo (16-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) thinks Dillashaw’s wrestling and control was the deciding factor, and having been previously high on Sandhagen, he admits Dillashaw’s performance surpassed his expectations.
“I am actually very surprised at T.J.,” Cejudo said in a recent post on Instagram. “I wasn’t betting on him. I really wasn’t because I’ve always thought Sandhagen just did a better job of what T.J. tends to do. But what you would want to credit in this fight is you would have to credit the wrestling, and the mindset, and the hunger. The reason why T.J. won the fight, I do believe he won the fight even though he got beat up, he controlled more of the time, and I don’t think we give credit to that.
“The majority of the time, T.J. was in a better position. T.J. did have him against the cage, took him down. He didn’t inflict that much damage, but he did enough to steal the rounds towards the end, so you’ve got to give credit where credit is due.”
Breaking down the fight.
Tj vs Sandhagen pic.twitter.com/aaXvBuwKxv— Henry Cejudo (@HenryCejudo) July 27, 2021
Cejudo, who needed just 32 seconds to dispatch of Dillashaw to retain his flyweight title in January 2019, wasn’t exactly rooting for him. But the Olympic wrestling gold medalist thinks Dillashaw exposed Sandhagen’s grappling and credits him for keeping Sandhagen on his back foot for the majority of the fight.
“I ain’t have him winning, I didn’t want him to win, but I guess apparently he had what it takes to beat Cory Sandhagen, which I really thought Cory Sandhagen was going to hurt him,” Cejudo added. “A couple of things we can learn about Cory Sandhagen is one, he’s got a big hole, and the name is wrestling. You put somebody that really is just mediocre, but could wrestle and semi-strike, but could wrestle more, man I don’t know. The other thing is when you bring the fight to him, he can’t fight backwards. He looks for a lot of those blitz knees and punches, but he doesn’t even have that dangerous power, so those are the two things I take away from it.
“Yeah he can go five rounds, but in reality he can knock you out with his other limbs, but with his hands he’s a little bit limited. So if I were to fight someone like Cory, I would really bring the fight and bring into fight zone where we’re more in that boxing range with the hands. Either way, this fight was extremely competitive. They call the 135-pound division murderer’s row. It’s crazy because I don’t think none of those dudes will go past two rounds with ‘Triple C,’ and you guys heard it here.”
The former UFC dual-champ has teased a return ever since announcing his retirement in May 2020 but is yet to commit to a comeback. Cejudo likes his chances against any 135-pounder and has even targeted UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.
