Henry Cejudo lost his headlining fight against Song Yadong on Saturday night by technical decision after being caught by an eye-poke that left him suffering from diplopia, soft tissue damage and a corneal abrasion, and a few days he says he’s still seeing double.
“Things are still blurry in my left eye,” Cejudo said on the Pound For Pound podcast. “I’m still seeing double. Even as I’m watching the fight right now on the screen, my eye is still not good.
“Luckily, I saw the ophthalmologist today and this is what she said, ‘If that pinky would have hit you in the pupil, you would be blind.’ I have a dent in my eye. It freaking ruptured. … It’s damaged.”
The 38-year-old Cejudo went on to admit that in the past he’d criticize fighters for being unable to continue after suffering an injury like this, but he now thinks differently after experiencing it for himself.
“I apologize to everybody who I’ve ever doubted. It’s not until it happens to you where you’re just like, f*ck, dude. Maybe it was time for me to eat some humble pie here. You just never know and I just feel like it should have been a point and if they would have done that whole point thing, this fight would have been a draw at least.”
In hindsight Cejudo feels that dealing with his eyepoke situation relatively calmly in the Octagon may have counted against him as it’s left people doubting whether his vision really was that compromised, or if he was just looking for a way out of the fight, not realizing that his decision to initially fight on had ruled out the possibility of getting a no-contest.
“I did [know the rules] if I recall,” Cejudo said. “But I wanted to fight. It’s the same reason why I took the five minutes and I can see where people kind of took it because I’m smiling, but that’s just me. I kind of did this, like, ‘Hey you guys, give me a second. I’m going to fight. I’m just waiting for my eyesight to come back.’ So I think where people really need to—I mean, I can open my eyes, but the only problem is I was seeing double. I was seeing two of Song, I think that was the biggest thing.
“I can see where people probably took it like he’s just playing or having fun or whatever it is that you want to call it… that’s why I asked the referee how much time is on the clock. He said, ‘A minute and 16 seconds.’ I’m like, ‘How much time do I have until I have to in there?’and I forgot what they said. I had maybe a couple of minutes, so I decided to just catch that—I was already recovered. I’m just really trying to get my eyesight back and unfortunately it just never came back.”
Cejudo is eager to get an immediate rematch with Yadong one his eye has healed up, but Dana White appears adamant that he doesn’t want to see that match-up again, so ‘Triple C’ does have one other potential opponent in mind for his next fight.
“If we can’t get Song, I would love to fight Petr Yan,” Cejudo said. “Petr Yan is looking to fight in May, if the UFC is willing to give me that, I’ll take it. If I don’t get Song, if I don’t get that rematch.”
