Henry Cejudo says he'll never fight T.J. Dillashaw again

ATLANTA – Henry Cejudo didn’t navigate the drug-testing waters of both the Olympic Games and the UFC just to turn around and let cheaters slide.

The current UFC flyweight champion and 2008 wrestling gold medalist had a more vested interest than most in the fate of T.J. Dillashaw.

Cejudo, of course, scored a swift knockout of Dillashaw when the then-bantamweight champion attempted to come down in weight and take Cejudo’s crown earlier this year.

Since then, Dillashaw relinquished his belt in advance of a two-year U.S. Anti-Doping Agency suspension due to the use of erythropoietin, better known as EPO.

And Cejudo said if Dillashaw returns after his suspension, there’s no way he’s going to accept another fight with his former foe.

“I’ll never fight him again, dude,” Cejudo told reporters, including MMA Junkie, backstage at UFC 236 on Saturday in Atlanta. “And I’m not, it’s not like I’m scared or whatnot. I shook his hand, and, this is a sport. This isn’t baseball – you’re not hitting a baseball, there’s another human being, dude, so I want no part of him.

“It doesn’t matter what they’re going to offer me, what they’re going to give me. In my eyes, T.J., there’s bad intentions, literally. There’s no desire for me to want the fight. I’ve always been drug-free.”

Cejudo, for his part, says he’s long heard the whispers about Dillashaw but didn’t think it was his place to comment.

“I’ve heard on T.J., and I really never brought it up, he was on supposedly in the days prior to USADA, even Cody (Garbrandt), himself, was like, ‘Hey, watch out dude, he’s dirty,'” Cejudo said. “People would come up to me, and I never really brought it up because I thought that that part of MMA is over, but I think once you find out he’s on it, it’s like, this dude ain’t playing fair.

:It’s a little dirty man. It’s not good for our sport. He could have hurt me.”

With that, Cejudo looks toward his future. He’ll attempt to become champ-champ when he meets Marlon Moraes for the title Dillashaw vacated at UFC 238 on June 8 in Chicago.

Cejudo and Moraes got into it at the UFC’s summer preview press conference on Friday, and Cejudo explained to reporters Saturday just why exactly he doesn’t like his next opponent.

“Marlon Moraes, man, he’s a dead man walking,” Cejudo said. “That’s all I can tell you guys. He is a dead man walking, Every day, I cannot allow the UFC to have someone who looks like Mr. Clean and talks like Michael Jackson. I can’t have a schmo. I cannot have it.

“It’s animosity, dude. He’s trying to take my dream. He’s trying to take my legacy from me. I’m not going to allow that.”

To hear more from Cejudo, check out the video above.

For more on UFC 236, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.