{"id":417406,"date":"2026-01-18T13:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T13:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/417406\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T13:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T13:24:07","slug":"matt-damon-snubbed-henry-cejudo-backstage-at-ufc-227","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/417406\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Damon snubbed Henry Cejudo backstage at UFC 227"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the most part, you can usually spot a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter from a mile away \u2014 cauliflower ears<\/a>, odd tattoos<\/a>, or a hulking physique usually give it away. But global movie star Matt Damon once crossed paths with one of the greatest UFC fighters of all time and didn\u2019t recognize him at all.<\/p>\n

That fighter? Henry Cejudo \u2014 who was a reigning champion at the time.<\/p>\n

On a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Damon and Ben Affleck stopped by to promote their new Netflix movie The RIP (it\u2019s actually pretty good), and Damon shared a funny story about an awkward backstage encounter at a UFC event, which was most likely UFC 227<\/a> in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember going to one of the events in Los Angeles, I think it was at Staples Center, and I was backstage,\u201d Damon said. \u201cI was talking to one of the lawyers about the UFC \u2014 we were talking about Conor McGregor and he was telling me a great story about him. This guy walks up, and he\u2019s in chinos \u2014 like khaki pants \u2014 and a blue button-up business shirt with spectacles. He\u2019s very small, and I kind of don\u2019t really regard him. I\u2019m still listening to this story.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Damon realized his mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen Patrick goes, \u2018Matt, do you know Henry?\u2019 I turn, and it\u2019s Henry Cejudo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Damon immediately understood the gravity of the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018This f\u2014king guy could wreck me right now,\u2019\u201d Damon laughed. \u201cLike absolutely f\u2014king destroy me. He\u2019s the guy that some dummy would try and pick on. You know what I mean? He wasn\u2019t carrying himself like a fighter. He\u2019s just the thing. You don\u2019t want to find that one out too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the momentary misread, Damon made it clear that his experiences with fighters have always been positive.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a video of Damon attending the event:<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, if the timeline checks out, Cejudo went on to become a two-division UFC champion just five months later, knocking out T.J. Dillashaw in 32 seconds on the first-ever ESPN+ UFC card.<\/p>\n

Cejudo officially retired from MMA last month following a fourth straight loss to surging prospect Payton Talbott at UFC 323, but \u201cTriple C\u201d isn\u2019t done competing just yet. He\u2019ll be lacing up the wrestling shoes again to face Urijah Faber at RAF 006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the most part, you can usually spot a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter from a mile away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,702,3194],"class_list":["post-417406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}