UFC and Olympic champion Henry Cejudo visits fellow Team USA wrestlers: "Wrestlers tend to make history"
by Interview by Gary Abbott and Mark Bader
Henry Cejudo made history this summer when he became the first athlete ever to win an Olympic gold medal and a UFC championship belt, when he beat the legendary Demetrious Johnson to win the UFC flyweight title. Cejudo unexpectedly stopped in at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs today, to visit with the Team USA wrestlers who were training. Both the Men's Freestyle World Team and the Greco-Roman World Team are now preparing for the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Cejudo lived here and trained here prior to winning the Olympic Gold Medal in freestyle wrestling at the 2008 Beijing Games. He completed high school at Coronado High School in the city, and trained at the OTC right up to his Olympic victory. Cejudo was the youngest U.S. Olympic wrestling champion at the time at age 21, until Kyle Snyder (also an OTC resident and Coronado grad) won his Olympic title at age 20 at the 2016 Rio Games. National Freestyle Coach Bill Zadick, a teammate at the OTC with Cejudo, invited him to practice after finding out Cejudo was in town. Henry talks about the experience in this interview with Gary Abbott and Mark Bader.
Photo on TheMat.com home page of Olympic wrestling champions Jordan Burroughs, Henry Cejudo, Kyle Snyder at the USOTC, posing with Cejudo's UFC Championship Belt.