Bautista In The Bad Books
Mario Bautista should be feeling on top of the world right now. The 31-year-old recently picked up the biggest victory of his career when he beat Jose Aldo at UFC 307 last month, but his performance in Salt Lake City has seemingly failed to boost his profile in the eyes of UFC fans.
Despite the victory over Aldo helping Bautista break into the top ten in the UFC’s 135lb rankings, the uninspiring manner with which he went about nullifying the UFC hall-of-famer at the Delta Centre led to a barrage of criticism in the immediate aftermath.
For almost the entirity of the fight, Bautista tried and failed to take Aldo down. While the Brazilian defended every attempt succesfully, Bautista pressed him against the fence relentlessly and limited any real opportunity for “The King of Rio” to land significant strikes of his own.
The MMA Lab fighter scraped through by way of split decision but he may now struggle to convince the UFC, it’s fans, or indeed the other fighters at the top end of the bantamweight rankings that he is worthy of another high profile opportunity.
Calling Out A Legend
Bautista approached former UFC flyweight and bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo during a meet-and-greet prior to LFA 196 in Arizona this weekend and asked “Triple C” to agree to be his next opponent. Former Olympic gold medallist Cejudo decided instead to offer some words of advice to Bautista.
“Can I tell you something?” said Cejudo. “You can’t be so damn boring, bro. Nobody’s going to fight you like that”.
While Bautista promised he wouldn’t be boring if he got the opportunity to fight the former champ, Cejudo shut him down by listing his own achievements.
“Listen…Olympic champ, flyweight champ, bantamweight champ…what have you done?” he asked the Glendale-based prospect.
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Cejudo recently returned to competitive action after a three-year hiatus, losing to Aljamain Sterling in May 2023 before being defeated by Merab Dvalishvili earlier this year, who then went on to win the bantamweight title in September.
While Bautista has been on an impressive run of form himself, his seven-fight win streak happened predominantly outside the divisional rankings, which Cejudo was quick to highlight.
“Ok but look who I lost to!” replied Cejudo when Bautista brought up their differing recent records. “At that time the guy (Sterling) was a current champ, and the other guy (Dvalishvili) is now the (current) champ.
“Are you gonna f***in nutgrab?” he said mockingly to Bautista. “What are you gonna do…are you gonna sit me against the cage like you did with Aldo? You haven’t done anything!”
Mario Bautista may have toppled a former champion and fan favorite in Jose Aldo, but it would seem that he may need a more definitive performance next time out if he has ambitions of earning fights against the household names of the UFC’s bantamweight division.
