A bantamweight title fight between current champion Aljamain Sterling and Henry Cejudo has been tentatively targeted for UFC 287’s main event on April 8th at a destination still to be confirmed at this time.
It should be stressed that no contracts have been issued or signed at this stage, but multiple sources confirmed to MMAFighting.com that the fight is in the works if all goes well.
The reason it’s still not been made official however is due to the bicep injury that Sterling had recently stated was holding him back from committing to the fight at UFC 285 on March 4th, with the hope now being that pushing the fight back a month will give him enough time to fully recover.
Injury issues have been a recurring theme in the past few years for the 33-year-old Sterling, but when he has been able to compete he’s been going from strength-to-strength, with wins over Petr Yan and TJ Dillashaw last year having extended his current unbeaten stretch to 8 fights while further strengthening his status as the 135lb champion.
Meanwhile, the 35-year-old Cejudo knows a thing or two about long layoffs and winning titles as he’s spent the best part of three years in retirement after going on a six-fight winning streak between 2017 and 2020 that saw him being crowned both the UFC’s bantamweight and then flyweight champion at the same time.
It originally seemed as if Cejudo was satisfied with leaving the sport on top, but it wasn’t long before he started to tease a potential comeback, though it only finally appears to be coming to fruition in 2023.
If it gets made official then Sterling vs. Cejudo would front a UFC 287 card that has so far been without either a main or co-main event, though other bouts such as Kelvin Gastelum vs. Chris Curtis, Rob Font vs. Adrian Yanez and Michelle Waterson vs. Luana Pinheiro have been confirmed for it.
