Henry Cejudo vs Aljamain Sterling Finalizing for UFC 288
Former two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo is all set to return inside the octagon and challenge the bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling at UFC 288 PPV.
Aljamain Sterling revealed the same on his Youtube channel on Monday. Several other reports have also confirmed that both fighters have verbally agreed to the bantamweight title clash on May 6. The bout was earlier reported to take place at UFC 287, but Sterling needed more time to recover from his injuries.
This will be Henry Cejudo’s first fight after his retirement in 2020. He had his last match at UFC 249 where he defeated Dominick Cruz via second-round TKO to retain the bantamweight title. However, after a few weeks of this fight, he vacated the title and announced his retirement. Back in 2018, Cejudo also won the UFC flyweight title which he vacated in 2020.
On the other hand, Aljamain Sterling is in the red hot form and is maintaining an eight-fight winning streak. He won the bantamweight title by defeating Petr Yan at UFC 259. He later won the rematch at UFC 273 to unify the bantamweight titles, and then defeated TJ Dillashaw at UFC 280 to retain the title once again.
Henry Cejudo never lost the bantamweight title and Aljamain Sterling hasn’t lost a match since 2017. Cejudo might suffer from ring rust since it’s been a while since he had his last bout.
Now, it remains to be seen whether Henry Cejudo will be able to take back the bantamweight title at UFC 288 on May 6 or not.
No location is confirmed for UFC 288 PPV as of now. A blockbuster lightweight bout between #1 ranked Charles Oliveira and #4 ranked Beniel Darius is also in work in the co-main event.