Henry “Triple Creep”, er “Triple C” Cejudo puts his bantamweight strap on the line versus Dominick Cruz.

Round 1

Cruz begins the fight with his patented herky-jerky movement on the outside. Cejudo lands several cracking leg kicks in what can only be interpreted as an attempt to limit Cruz’s movement and slow him down. Triple C lands a takedown but is unable to do anything with it as Cruz quickly is back to his feet. Cruz scores with two nice front kicks. Cruz also lands a nice leg kick. But Cejudo is off to a fast start and this round is clearly his.

Seattle Fights round score – 10-9 Cejudo

Round 2

Cejudo starts off with a front kick to Cruz’s body. Cruz lands a nice calf kick before another chopping low kick from Cejudo. Cruz scores with a solid 1-2 up the middle. Cruz appears to be getting things going a bit with another nice combo. Cejudo, however, lands a couple good right hands. The fighters exchange good low kicks. Cruz lands a good left hand off the break after he aborted a single-leg takedown attempt. An accidental head butt (of which Triple C has previously been accused of benefiting from in other fights) causes a cut on Cejudo’s forehead that briefly stops the action just 21 seconds into the round.

Late in the round, Cejudo badly hurts Cruz with a knee direct to Cruz’s face as Cruz was moving forward and lowering his head. The force of the strike rocks Cruz and sends him backward to the canvas. Cejudo quickly pursues and as Cruz is attempting to recover Cejudo hits Cruz with about eleven left hands. Referee “The No Nonsense” Keith Peterson has seen enough and stops the bout. There is a bit of controversy in this call as Cruz did appear to be attempting to stand up. But Seattle Fights has no problem with this stoppage as Cruz was absolutely hammered by the knee and taking eleven unanswered strikes qualifies as a proper stoppage in this humble writer’s opinion.

After the bout, Triple C announced his retirement. If the retirement holds up, Triple C has stated his case as one of the greatest combat sports athletes of all time. Despite this writer’s dislike of many of Triple C’s ways, he does have a strong argument to present with his gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 2008 Olympic Games to go along with his UFC flyweight and bantamweight titles. So here’s a tip of the cap to you, Triple C.

Official decision – TKO victory for defending champ Cejudo at 4:58 or Round 2