Petr Yan Slams Henry Cejudo Over Push For Jose Aldo Fight

Henry Cejudo is campaigning for a bout with Jose Aldo next, even though, officially, the latter lost his bantamweight debut to Marlon Moraes. Well, not surprisingly, the fast-rising Petr Yan isn’t thrilled with the bantamweight champ right now.

Yan slams Cejudo

Aldo made his much-discussed, bantamweight debut against Moraes at UFC 245, and lost the fight via split decision. Well, not only did one judge score the fight for Aldo, so did a lot of people, including Cejudo. Following the December 14th card, Dana White reported that Cejudo believes Aldo won the bout and that he wants to fight the legend next. White said he was open to the match-up, and since then, both Aldo and Cejudo have called for the fight.

Well, more recently Yan spoke with MMA Fighting, and while discussing Cejudo’s push for the Aldo fight, the Russian fighter said this:

“I don’t respect Cejudo at all,” Yan said. “His decision to ask for Aldo is not worthy of a champion. You want to fight someone who’s on a losing streak and not at the peak of his career. You are the champion, and you have to defend your title against the deserving No. 1 contender; you shouldn’t call out someone who just lost. Cejudo is a joke and just showed his true colors.”

“You all can see that ‘Triple Clown’ is trying to avoid the fight with me,” he said. “He’s even afraid to mention my name. All I see is his mental weakness now. Let’s do it if you consider yourself a champion – try to prove that I’m wrong.”

“If UFC books Cejudo vs. Aldo, I won’t be happy about it, just like millions of real fans around the world. It will be another hit to the sport of MMA…”

Is Yan on target here?

So, there’s a couple of things to look at here. First off, if you prefer your match-making with a heavy dose of meritocracy, then you understand Yan’s frustration. He’s gone 6-0 now in the UFC, and during that time he’s defeated big names and or contenders like Jimmie Rivera, John Dodson and most recently Urijah Faber.

While Aldo is one of the greatest featherweights of all time, at the end of the day, he’s coming off a loss. Further, while there’s a case to be made that he, in fact, beat Moraes, it was a close fight.

In terms of Yan’s argument that Cejudo is ducking Yan right now, that seems somewhat unlikely. Since Cejudo won the bantamweight title he’s made it clear he wants to secure some bigger profile and paying fights. There’s no doubt that as of right now, Cejudo – Aldo would be bigger than Cejudo – Yan. So, it’s likely for that reason he’s pushing for a bout with Aldo, versus the fear of facing Yan. After all, we are talking about a guy who has beaten the likes of Demetrious Johnson and T.J. Dillashaw.