Henry Cejudo made a playful reference to Raoni Barcelos, and Chael Sonnen by proxy, in the wake of Cejudo’s loss to Payton Talbott, and Talbott has since responded. The MMA reference point of “just how good is…” refers to a trope that Chael Sonnen established years ago, asking the ever-present question of “just how good is Kevin Lee?”, which became a common reference framework in mixed martial arts circles since.
With the Olympic gold medalist retiring from mixed martial arts over the weekend, Henry Cejudo took to his personal X page to interject something a bit light-hearted in the fallout of losing his swan song bout, as Cejudo said,
“Just how good is Raoni Barcelos #UFC323 [laughing emoji]”
The Barcelos reference is tied to that being Talbott’s only loss in professional MMA, with Barcelos besting him at UFC 311 in January via unanimous decision. To that, Talbott would retweet the message from his most recent opponent as the rising star responded with a pair of laughing emojis in his own right.
Henry Cejudo receives additional financial compensation in a loss, decision from Dana White and co. splits fans
Henry Cejudo also received his win money despite taking a loss in his retirement fight on Saturday night, and the nature of the decision has had MMA fans divided. In the wake of his fourth consecutive loss since returning from his 2020 retirement, Cejudo campaigned for a performance of the night bonus with the former two-division UFC champion’s manager confirming to X that ‘Triple C’ had received his win money as well as his show money despite the result being a defeat.
Ali Abdelaziz putting this message out to the online MMA community drew out a series of polarizing takes. Some fans took the gesture to be a kind one, while some lamented about fighter pay and how someone like Cejudo, with his sparkling UFC resume, should be compensated to a far higher degree than he was. Some also spotlighted how someone like Cejudo should not be tied into a show-money-win-money style of UFC contract, which many see as antiquated.