Henry Cejudo breaks down recent Conor McGregor training footage; McGregor responds

Henry Cejudo is rekindling his beef with Conor McGregor.

Earlier this year, Cejudo and McGregor began feuding over social media, with Cejudo offering the former two-division champion advice that McGregor took none too kindly. That led to Cejudo teasing a potential fight between the two at 155 pounds, but ultimately the feud died down. Now Cejudo is trying to bring it back to life.

In a video posted to his YouTube channel on Wednesday, Cejudo again critiqued some recent training footage McGregor put up on his social media, including hitting pads and some mobility exercises.

“Conor McGregor might be the real King of Cringe if you look at it,” Cejudo said. “Talk about bringing the macarena back. Look at Conor McGregor out there twerking. I think he’s trying to get elusive here [circles the hip]. I think I get what he’s trying to do but in reality it’s not his mobility that he needs help on. He needs more help on understanding leverage and how to distribute his weight when being taken down... Your focus should be more on tactical training rather than movement...

“No twitch, no setup, no inching in, not disguising the entry. These are important things. It could be a powerful kick, the only problem is, everyone is going to know it’s coming because it’s done naked. This is why you want to train as you would practice. A lot of people go, ‘Oh you’re hitting pads!’ It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whatever it is that you’re doing, you have to make sure you’re feinting and you’re doing it all. You can’t just throw naked. He throws one punch and then he bounces out, and then he comes out of position again. Fighting is all about discipline. Can I stay in there? Can I dance the dance as I’m going to get ready to hit pads? This stuff is important. Out of position again. Can you stay in position the whole time? That little bouncy stuff, back and forth, when you do that to recover — you’ve got to get accustomed to just being [in range] the whole time, and if you’re really going to get out, get the hell out. But don’t bounce back and forth when you’re in front of your coach. That stuff’s not going to help you.

“Can Conor crack? Absolutely he can crack, but he’s also in range. Pads don’t hit back. You can have knees coming in, you can get taken down, which is his biggest thing. There’s a lot of things Conor really needs to work on. All these movements back and forth and then, boom, he goes. That’s stuff is not going to help him. That stuff is going to get him tired. It’s better for Conor to use his energy more efficiently.”

Much of Cejudo’s criticism echoes his same remarks on previous McGregor training videos. Cejudo even admits he might be singling McGregor out, but maintains that his critiques are valid.

“It almost sounds like a lot of times I’m picking on Conor and maybe I am, just a little, but I do have to nitpick him. That’s the same reason I became the best in the world. That’s the same reason I became the Triple C...

“Conor McGregor, I’m going to give you some tips here. If you want to take your training serious, you’re going to have to really focus on your entries. As I said before, you really want to disguise what you’re doing. Power’s not the key, man. You’re precise. It doesn’t take that much power to knock somebody out, but you tend to like the physique style of look. But get away from that, man. Study your positions, study fakes, study feints, study the real distance game, adjust your stance, because if you’re able to do that, Conor, maybe, just maybe you’ll be able to be a top contender.”

Unsurprisingly, McGregor didn’t take long to respond to Cejudo, firing back at his fellow champ-champ on Twitter.

McGregor has been out of action since shattering his leg in his trilogy fight with Dustin Poirier at UFC 264, but is targeting a return to the cage early next year. Meanwhile, Cejudo retired from MMA in 2020 but re-entered the USADA testing pool earlier this year, with the intent of chasing a fight against UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.