Henry Cejudo is the UFC’s Flyweight Champion, a designation he earned after shocking the world when he knocked off Demetrious Johnson at UFC 227 in Los Angeles in August 2018. Now in the biggest fight of his career, he’s once again the underdog and will once again try to silence all the doubters.
A post shared by Henry Cejudo (@henry_cejudo) on Aug 2, 2018 at 3:31pm PDT
Being a former Olympian in Greco Roman wrestling, Cejudo’s overall game plan in almost every fight is clear: take the fight to the mat and control the action from there. And Cejudo is almost always successful in achieving this goal. In the fight with Johnson, Cejudo utilized somewhat of a counter wrestling game, feinting with his strikes and then luring Johnson into positions where Cejudo was the most advantageous in getting takedowns. While he didn’t do a great deal of damage on the ground, his smothering style zapped the gas tank of the former champion and dwindled the veracity of his strikes as the fight progressed.
Another great example of this is Cejudo’s prior bout with Sergio Pettis at UFC 218, where Cejudo spent all three rounds with ground control, completely depleting the gas tank of Pettis, severely weakening the power of his strikes.
In the striking department, Cejudo has begun implementing a variation of a karate style in his last few fights. This was most obvious during his fight with Wilson Reis at UFC 215, where he used many karate feints before landing a large counter right hand for the knock out. While he does carry power in his hands, his main goal, as mentioned before, is to achieve the takedown, utilize his wrestling, and zap the gas tank of his opponent.
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