Petr Yan Believes Henry Cejudo Retired To Avoid Top Contenders

After defeating Dominick Cruz at UFC 249, Henry Cejudo shook the world by announcing his retirement. According to ‘Triple C’, he had achieved all he could in the sport and wanted some personal time. However, the current top contender for the bantamweight title Petr Yan, thinks otherwise.

After Cejudo vacated the title, the UFC announced that Yan would face Jose Aldo for the bantamweight title at UFC 251 on Fight Island. The Russian is coming off a vicious KO victory against Urijah Faber at UFC 245 and holds a record of 14-1.

Speaking to MMA Junkie, Yan gave his thoughts on Cejudo’s retirement and explained why he thought he really hung up his gloves.

“Henry didn’t want to fight number one contenders like me or [Aljamain] Sterling,” Yan said. “He even said it’s his fault Aldo is fighting for the title and it should’ve been me versus Aljamain. So he admitted himself [that] he wanted to fight someone who didn’t deserve to fight for the belt.”

Even though Yan criticised Henry’s decisions, he accepted that he has “no hate” for the former two-division champion. But he also believes that if Cejudo really believed he could clear out the division, he wouldn’t have retired.

“I don’t hate the guy and I’m not disappointed I won’t get to fight him, because my goal is to win the belt, and not to fight Cejudo. The division is booming right now and he retired without facing top contenders,” Yan said. “If he had confidence he could clear out the division, he wouldn’t retire right now.”

The 135lbs division is certainly stacked right now and you could easily argue that they stole the show at UFC 250. One bantamweight who impressed at UFC 250 was Sean O’Malley. And in the last couple of days, Yan and ‘Sugar’ have gone back on forth on social media.

How do you think Petr Yan matches up against Henry Cejudo and Sean O’Malley?

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