Henry Cejudo is having second thoughts about his UFC 322 main event prediction.
Jack Della Maddalena (18-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC) defends his welterweight title against Islam Makhachev (27-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC) in Saturday’s headliner (pay-per-view, ESPNews/Disney+/FX, ESPN+) at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Advertisement
Cejudo is worried about one particular thing Makhachev said that has him skeptical about picking him.
“I was going with Islam Makhachev, but I don’t think it’s as simple as I thought it was,” Cejudo said on his “Pound 4 Pound” podcast with Kamaru Usman. “I will definitely backtrack on that. There’s something that does scare me about this fight. There’s something that Islam said that made me think, ‘If wrestling doesn’t work, we’re going to strike.’
“Do you really want to strike with the guy that goes to the body, that kicks, throws knees up the middle how he caught GIlbert Burns? But, that being said, I don’t know. I want to go Islam Makhachev because of the wrestling, but there’s a little bit of doubt of what I said before, ‘If wrestling doesn’t work, we’re going to strike.’ The only way, in my opinion, of Islam Makhachev winning this fight is going to have to be through the grappling, particularly the wrestling.”
Makhachev did tell Daniel Cormier in an interview that he’s confident he will succeed in taking Della Maddalena down eventually at some point.
Advertisement
“(Defend) every takedown? No, it’s not possible,” Makhachev said of Della Maddalena. “Maybe some he can defend, but not every takedown.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC 322: Why picking Islam Makhachev to win scares Henry Cejudo
