‘The Eagle’ Ain’t G.O.A.T.

Whether you embrace his cringe or not, Henry Cejudo was a pretty damn good mixed martial artist… and he’ll remind you of that at any given opportunity.

Living it up in the retired life as a new father, “Triple C” has continually poked and prodded at the possibility of a comeback — specifically against current Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Featherweight titleholder Alexander Volkanovski. The reason for this is that Cejudo just flat-out loves himself some gold.

The former UFC Bantamweight and Flyweight champion is one of the rare few in the sport’s history to have held titles in two divisions at the same time. Because of that, he believes he’s earned his spot amongst the top five greatest UFC fighters of all time while some others like Khabib Nurmagomedov fall short.

“I believe he’s top 10 because he only had 12 fights in the UFC like me,” Cejudo said on The Triple C & Schmo Show (h/t MMA Junkie). “But if he was to win a second belt and then win another title then he would even be above me because that means he would be undefeated.”

Nurmagomedov retired in Oct. 2020 after accumulating a stellar 29-0 record that saw him successfully defend his Lightweight crown three times. Between both of Cejudo’s titles, he defended twice (one for each).

Regarding who makes up his list of the five best to ever do it, Cejudo surprisingly didn’t have himself as No. 1. That likely wasn’t the only shocker, however, as the Olympic gold medalist in wrestling slotted Canada’s Georges St-Pierre at No. 5 — one spot behind Cejudo who’s at No. 4. Long-time Middleweight kind Anderson Silva occupies his No. 3 spot while past rival Demetrious Johnson is the second best. All but leaving Mr. Jon “Bones” Jones at the top of the MMA mountain in Cejudo’s eyes.

Just to go off the number of fights as Cejudo mentioned for “The Eagle,” his math was slightly off. The amount for each fighter listed can be seen below.

• Nurmagomedov: 13 (13-0 in UFC)
• St-Pierre: 22 (20-2 in UFC)
• Cejudo: 12 (10-2 in UFC)
• Silva: 25 (17-7, 1 no contest in UFC)
• Johnson: 18 (15-2-1 in UFC)
• Jones: 22 (20-1, 1 no contest in UFC)