Top Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight prospect Payton Talbott faces the toughest test of his career when he collides with former two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo on the UFC 323 pay-per-view (PPV) main card this weekend (Sat., Dec. 6, 2025) inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

A win would vault Talbott into the Bantamweight Top 10, but the matchup comes with an odd twist: before Cejudo “retired” for what felt like the 75th time following his loss to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 298, “Triple C” actually served as a mentor to the then–UFC rookie. And the advice he gave ended up significantly shaping Talbott’s early career.

“We hung out together for a couple days straight. He gave me a lot of career-changing advice and tried to mentor me quite a bit because, I mean, he was supposed to retire,” Talbott told MMAFighting. “It was leading up to his Merab fight; he was supposed to retire after that, so it was like, we’re never going to fight each other — and here we are. He gave me a lot of advice, actually.”

Talbott didn’t share the finer details, but he made it clear the conversations left a lasting impact.

“Without getting too specific, it was just how to structure your camp to mimic competition — the mentality, what the body can take — and how important it is to have security outside of fighting,” Talbott continued. “He had his whole life based around long-term security, like financial security. He was adamant: ‘You have no idea what’s going to come later in life. You always need to make sure you’re good financially because everyone will try to f—k you.’ It takes somebody telling you that to really know. He was really trying to do right by me, and he was right.”

Who knew Henry Cejudo had a life-coach era in him? Then again, with all his championship experience — Olympic gold medal included — he’s probably one of the better people to get guidance from… even if he fumbled parts of his own prime chasing a pay bump.

When it comes to actually fighting Cejudo, Talbott isn’t all that worried about the usual “Triple C” fight-week cringe (like this).

“We’re pretty familiar, so it would take a lot to really surprise me, I think, and I think he knows that,” Talbott concluded. “So we’ll see what happens because I’m pretty chill, but yeah, I don’t know. I’m also interested to see what happens during fight week.”

Talbott enters the fight off a win over fellow up-and-comer Felipe Lima, while Cejudo is riding a three-fight skid — the longest of his storied career. And, of course, he claims he’s retiring… again.

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