UFC Brooklyn: TJ Dillashaw ready to go 'into the unknown' for flyweight title fight with Henry Cejudo

TJ Dillashaw won the bantamweight title with a knockout of Cody Garbrandt at UFC 217 at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 4, 2017. Credit: Mario Gonzalez
The task ahead for TJ Dillashaw presents its share of challenges beyond the basics of fist and kick avoidance.
Dillashaw, the reigning UFC bantamweight champion, is asking this of himself for Saturday night: Be 7.4 percent less on the scales and then defeat the reigning flyweight champion and former Olympic gold medal wrestler Henry Cejudo.
“I’m the one that’s making the sacrifice. I’m the one that’s going into the unknown,” Dillashaw said Monday of going from 135 pounds to 125 pounds for this bout. “I’m challenging the physics of my body. I’m challenging a guy that’s been at that weight class and I haven’t yet.”
Dillashaw and Cejudo will headline the UFC Brooklyn fight card at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It is the first UFC event broadcast by ESPN, the promotion’s new broadcast partner. Cejudo vs. Dillashaw, and the rest of the main card, will air on ESPN+, the network’s digital streaming service, while prelims will air on television on ESPN. (Early prelims also will stream on ESPN+.)
Only Cejudo’s title is on the line. Dillashaw will attempt to become the UFC’s fourth fighter to hold titles in two different weight classes simultaneously. Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier and Amanda Nunes also became double champs. The difference with Dillashaw, who stands at 5-6, is that he’d become the first fighter to accomplish the feat while moving down in weight.
“This has been a 12-week weight cut,” Dillashaw said. “It’s not an overnight. It’s a lot of work. That’s why guys don’t do it.”
Dillashaw (17-3) said if the 125-pound flyweight division existed when he started in the UFC, he’d have begun his career there.
And now here he is, seven-plus years since reaching the final on “The Ultimate Fighter,” poised perhaps to bring an end to the flyweight division. There has been much rumor and speculation that the UFC would eliminate its men’s flyweight division in the near future, especially following the “trade” of former champion Demetrious Johnson to One Championship for Ben Askren.
“I got called out by Cejudo. I’ll come down and take the belt,” Dillashaw said. “I’ll be the last flyweight champion ever.”
There has been no official announcement from the UFC about the future of its flyweight division, though.
Dillashaw has said that he’d also consider a move up to the 145-pound featherweight division and challenge for a third title. He’d need to beat Cejudo (13-2) first, of course.
“Get this belt at 125 and then call out the world,” he said. “When I pull it off, it’ll be something great.”
More MMA



