Henry Cejudo remains the flyweight champion after UFC Brooklyn, but his victory did not come without controversy. T.J. Dillashaw has been on the trail telling the world how wronged he was by what he considered a premature stoppage, and his assessment of the stoppage was immediately seconded by UFC President Dana White. But T.J. Dillashaw isn’t the only person who has been consistent with his take on the stoppage. Henry Cejudo has consistently supported the referee’s decision and has also maintained that the ending of the bout was academic at that point anyway:
“It’s not my decision. I did my job,” Cejudo said in an interview with MMA Junkie. “I did my job. I was going to hurt him regardless. He wasn’t going to make it past that minute, I promise you. I put my house on it. I put everything that I own it. He was not going to make it…because I saw him hurt.
“You have to understand, too, these hands, these hips, there’s strength involved. When you get wrapped, it’s hard. It’s a cast. And then you add the glove to it, I mean, it don’t take much. And you can’t be taking punishment like that. You can’t be dropping three damn times, even if it’s in 10 seconds, and expect the ref not to stop it.
“I think it was a good stoppage. I think there needs to be more of that.”
Henry Cejudo would then offer T.J. Dillashaw some advice in a remixed version of a common MMA maxim:
“They say, ‘Never leave it up to the judges.’ But nobody ever says, ‘Never leave it up to the ref.’” Cejudo said. “T.J., never leave it up to the ref. Never leave it up to the ref, man. And that’s exactly what happened. He left it up to the ref, and they stopped it.”
Do you agree with Henry Cejudo? Did T.J. Dillashaw go wrong by “leaving it to the ref” at UFC Brooklyn?
