Michael Bisping: Henry Cejudo not big enough to beat Alexander Volkanovski

Michael Bisping thinks it’s a bad idea for Henry Cejudo to challenge Alexander Volkanovski.

Almost two years after he hung up his gloves, Cejudo (16-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) announced he has re-entered the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) drug-testing pool and wants to face featherweight champion Volkanovski.

But Bisping, a former UFC middleweight champion and now analyst and commentator, thinks the former UFC flyweight and bantamweight champion will be at a significant size disadvantage if he were to fight Volkanovski (24-1 MMA, 11-0 UFC).

“Yes, great, dream big, the problem is you aren’t big,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “You’re not big enough to fight Alexander Volkanovski, I don’t believe so. You were a 125-er for a reason, you became the champion there. You stepped up to 135, that’s only a 10 pound increase. Stepping up to 45, that’s a 20 pound increase (and) when you’re a shorter guy that’s a large percent of your body weight and we saw a picture of him recently looking a little chubby, a little out of shape. Yes, he can get heavy, he can probably get up to 160, who knows? even heavier, but is that your optimal weight?

“There’s a reason why he picked 125, there’s a reason why he went to 35. Making 125 was probably very hard, 35 was probably his natural weight (but) 45, things start to get out of the desired weight, out of the optimal point, where you’re carrying extra weight which is gonna slow you down which is ultimately gonna make you weaker. In the short term make you stronger, make you heavier but as the fight progresses and you’re getting tired and you’re carrying all that extra weight around your mid section and what not, that becomes a pain in the ass.”

Volkanovski is coming off a dominant performance of Chan Sung Jung in this past Saturday’s UFC 273 main event. The featherweight champion, who’s competed all the way up at 170 pounds in his MMA career, stated his desire of potentially moving up to lightweight for a shot at a second UFC title.

So with Volkanovski’s recent rise up the pound-for-pound rankings, Bisping thinks it’s best if Cejudo tried to reclaim the bantamweight title he never lost instead.

“Alexander Volkanovski is the man,” Bisping added. “He’s beaten Max Holloway twice, took out ‘Korean Zombie’ in style, made it look easy. Prior to that Brian Ortega, what a fight, what a performance. The man’s incredible. Volkanovski has a record of 23-1, I don’t think Henry Cejudo would be the guy.”