Is Cejudo retiring after the Dom fight the dumbest move in MMA history?

[Pechan]

Dude finished a juiced of his tits TJ.
Completely ruined Marlon Moraes to win TJ's belt a division above.
Finishes Dom Cruz, I believe the first one to finish him since Faber at WEC.
Was 100% getting the legend Jose Aldo next.
His gimmick was actually going over well, fans were chearing him, the press was covering his press conferences and interviews with anticipation giving him ton of free press, he was gaining followers.

Then in an extremely dumb move he decided to "retire" to try to force the UFC hand to up his pay (which as we saw in this past event is complete shit), something that he should be giving shit to his manager about, not the promotion.

Dana responded by literally matching up the vacant title that same night, Cejudo did come back to a TS but wasted the last years of his prime hyping up his return on youtube.

 

[Kowboy On Sherdog]

Khabib would probably be Top 3 GOAT by now...

 

[Buff]

It's definitely up there.

Athletes have such a small window of time to make money with... By the time he was done with his tantrum, everyone had forgotten about his fighting, and he was just the cringey little guy.

 

[BigTruck]

It was a very bad move especially as a challenger you don't get as much as a defending champ so he lost out on a lot of money also it's hilarious how little the ufc cares about him and how much he thought of himself.

 

[biscuitsbrah]

it was a bad move but I think he did actually want to retire or he would have returned sooner.

Plus he got a family in the meantime so it was worth it

 

[Cowboy Kurt Angle]

Yes

 

[ExitLUPin]

TJ weight draining himself to 125 a weight he hadnt been at since he was in high school, taking EPO to help weight cut.

Was drained so bad he got rocked and finished from the first few punches Henry threw. Flagged by USADA. Vacated BW title but really was stripped and banned for years.

Prior to making the dumb weight drop he was 16-3, ended Cody, avenged Assuncao loss dominantly and likely would have beat Cruz in rematch. He was top 3 P4P at time. He could have cemented himself as BW GOAT...

 

[IsNormal]

I dunno.

If he had kept fighting he likely would've lost sooner or later.

So if he left because he failed to negotiate a pay bump ...would it be incredibly smart to spend the energy to keep fighting for a pay you're not happy with? With every fight being a losing risk where you'd lose out on the chance of a comeback

But of course yes - it's just unnatural to retire over money, I don't like it.

 

[Thepaintbucket]

Maybe in hindsight. But if you go back to the whole Mightly Mouse pay issue, Henry was hoping to leverage whatever worth he had.

 

[FreddieRoachsVoice]

Definitely a strong contender. He grossly overrated his own bargaining power after "saving the FLW division". The amount of MMA fighters who are "set for life" after the money they made is a count on one hand list.

Anyone who chooses this extremely risky career, is fortunate enough to build up enough star power to make some actual money, and then squanders it all by being horribly inactive is on another level of retarded.

Yair Rodriguez - 13 fights since winning TUF at age 22 10 years ago
Brian Ortega - 4 fights in the last 6 years
Alexander Gustaffson - 9 fights since losing to Jones 11 years ago
Luke Rockhold - 4 fights since losing the belt to Bisping 8 years ago
Paulo Costa - 6 fights since beating Hendricks 7 years ago
Henry Cejudo - 14 TOTAL UFC fights, 2 fights in the last 4 years since his ridiculous retirement angle

Meanwhile, Andrei Arlovski rejoined the UFC in 2014 at age 35 and has fought 27 TIMES. The goal of prize fighting is to MAKE MONEY and a lot of these lazy guys are going to be pissed at themselves in 10 years when they realize they squandered their prime fighting years goofing around.

Opening a gym or being a coach are both risky ventures with no guarantee of stable income. Considering the extremely high level of turnover of fans in MMA, I would exactly expect to make major money "off your name" if you're an ex-mma fighter. A lot of broke guys with medical bills are going to be bitching about fighter benefits in the future and it will be a sad (yet self inflicted) state of affairs