Former wrestlers Justin Gaethje, Henry Cejudo and Carla Esparza were victorious at UFC 249For better or worse, with the COVID-19 pandemic still very much in play, the Ultimate Fighting Championship resumed its business of putting on fights, with UFC 249 taking place this past Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida. And while we will leave the debate as to whether or not this was a good thing for another time, the UFC did offer up a fantastic card that featured its fair share of high-level amateur wrestlers.
So what did UFC 249 tell us about these former stars of the mat?
Justin Gaethje
What we learned: One of the most entertaining fighters ever, Gaethje is still improving. He has always had an absolute ton of offensive firepower, durability, and a certain blood-and-guts style that fans love, but now the interim lightweight champion has added tact, strategy, and efficiency to his repertoire. That should scare his contemporaries. Oh and by the way, his boxing is looking cleaner than ever.
Still, the former two-time Arizona high school state champions (four-time finalist), 2004 Fargo Greco-Roman All-American, NCAA Division I All-American wrestler refuses to actually wrestle, but with that kind of diverse striking attack and his wrestling always in his back pocket, "The Highlight" is going to be tough to beat.
Tony Ferguson
What we learned: The man they call "El Cucuy" is hard as nails. Perhaps too tough for his own good. He absorbed a whole lot of punishment in this fight, and while his toughness, grit, resolve, and durability were staggering, a fighter can't take too many beatings like this without their career suffering significantly.
Ferguson was a Michigan high school state champ wrestler who spent two years at Central Michigan University and then two years on the club team at Grand Valley State where he won the NCWA national title in 2006 at 165 pounds. It is universally accepted that wrestling at a high level instills an uncanny level of toughness in an athlete. This certainly seems to be the case with Ferguson.
He showed up on Saturday night, and he did his thing early on, but aside from the fact that he was facing a revamped, revitalized, peaking Justin Gaethje, it is possible there were other factors working against him. Maybe, training non-stop since November 2019 for an elusive mega-fight against champ Khabib Nurmagomedov has burned him out some. Most likely Ferguson will continue on as one of the best 155-pounders in the world, but time will tell if this fight took something out of him for good.
Henry Cejudo
What we learned: Henry Cejudo has no business retiring from MMA at this time. The self-proclaimed (and likely correct) greatest combat athlete of all time, Cejudo is presently firing on all cylinders and looking phenomenal. We also learned that 135 pounds is probably the ideal weight class for the two-division champ. His speed carries over spectacularly and his explosiveness is on another level.
Having grown up in the USA Wrestling system that has produced so many of the world's greatest athletes, Cejudo is on another level than most of his UFC piers. With his strength, power, conditioning, clean technique, pacing, peaking, making weight/rehydrating, Cejudo performs exactly like a guy who was molded in such an established athletic system like the one in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center.
The 2008 Olympic champion with a wrestling resume too extensive to list, Cejudo can box, wrestle, scramble, kick like a mule. He's also in great shape and likely still improving. Cejudo defeated a very much on his game Dominic Cruz, something only two other men have done, and he made it look relatively easy.
We can hope that Cejudo's retirement is just a ploy to get a better contract from the UFC, and I think that is likely, but history has shown he is a guy who loses interest. We will see which ends up being the case.
Carla Esparza
What we learned: The first-ever UFC women's strawweight champion, Esparza is not done. The wrestling powerhouse who competed successfully under legendary wrestler Lee Allen at Menlo College in California, Esparza has had a bit of an up-and-down UFC career thus far.
When Esparza won the Ultimate Fighter reality show and subsequently destroyed future champ Rose Namajunas to win the title, big things were expected from the California native. Unfortunately, her next fight saw her lose in spectacular fashion to women's MMA legend Joanna Jędrzejczyk, and since then she has struggled to climb back to the top.
Fortunately, Esparza still has some tricks up her sleeve. The former champ just defeated her third straight opponent at UFC 249 in the always dangerous, highly ranked Michelle Waterson. It was a tough, close fight that saw Esparza push through and finish strong. Another win should have her closing in on a title eliminator and maybe, just maybe, another shot at gold.
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