Joseph Benavidez has been a fixture in the UFC flyweight division since its inception, literally.
Tabbed to take part in the four-man tournament to crown the division’s first champion, Benavidez defeated Yasuhiro Urushitani to earn his place in the inaugural title clash, where he dropped a split decision to Demetrious Johnson.
With Johnson’s recent departure, Benavidez now stands as the longest tenured fighter in the weight class with an uncertain future. But the Las Vegas-based veteran isn’t letting any of the talk about the flyweight ranks being shuttered shift his focus as he readies to return to action Friday night against Alex Perez.
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“Until I have an option, I don’t have to deal with that option,” Benavidez told Sporting News. “Rumors are rumors. Until there is something in front of me that says ‘Do this or do that,’ but until then, I’m fighting Alex Perez on Friday at flyweight.”
Perez wasn’t always the man Benavidez was going to face in his first fight since dropping a close contest to Sergio Pettis in June.
Initially, the perennial contender was paired off with Ray Borg on the 25th anniversary fight card in Denver, Colorado earlier this month, but a few days before the bout, Borg was pulled from the contest due to an undisclosed medial issue, leaving Benavidez in limbo.
At the same time, speculation that the company planned on shutting down the 125-pound weight class started to trickle out as competitors took to social media, announcing they had been released from their contracts.
The whole situation was like a punch in the gut for Benavidez, who took it in stride initially, before having an emotional crash once he returned home from Colorado.
“The hardest part was figuring out, ‘What do I do? Do I train tomorrow? Do I stay on weight? What are we doing?’” Benavidez said of his bout with Borg being scuttled just days before the two were set to step into the cage. “It was no more than a day or two before (the UFC cleared everything up). I tried to pump the brakes a little bit — train while I was in Denver — and went into Elevation and sparred on Friday because I was like, ‘I’m getting into a fight this week, somehow.’"
He added: “I came back to Vegas and it wasn’t really until then that I had an emotional dump. I stayed stimulated in Denver because I had stuff to do, places to eat, family to hang out with, but then I got on my couch on Sunday and was like, ‘I’ve got to train tomorrow? I was done with this.’ It wasn’t weird in Denver, but when I got home it was like, ‘Wait — I’m supposed to sleep in tomorrow.’ But I turned off my mind for a week of training and then pumped it back up the week before. I have the right people around me, telling me the right things and that really helps.”
While being surrounded by the right people has helped him work through the three-week shift from facing Borg to squaring off with Perez on Friday, being a veteran of the sport and having an level-headed approach to things has allowed him to maintain perspective on the uncertain future of the flyweight division.
“The news started to come out [the week I was in Denver] and so that was just on top of everything (else that was going on) and it was like, ‘What’s going on?’” said Benavidez, who carries a 25-5 record into Friday’s showdown with Perez. “It was a little more because my fight got [cancelled] and that made me focus more on what was going on and it was fresh at that moment. But once I got this fight and it’s at flyweight and they made the flyweight title fight, those two things were like, ‘What am I worried about? It’s going until it’s not.’”
And just as he has been since the division’s inception, Benavidez remains a central figure in the championship situation.
While no one is certain what the future holds for the flyweight division, new champ Henry Cejudo is scheduled to defend his belt against bantamweight titleholder TJ Dillashaw at UFC 233 on Jan. 26 at Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
Benavidez has history with both men, as he owns a split decision victory over Cejudo and spent a number of years training alongside Dillashaw at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, and since that fight is on the books for early next year, he plans on doing the same thing he’s done following each of his previous flyweight victories after he notches another one on Friday — call for a shot at the champion, whomever that ends up being.
“Both fights make sense,” he said of potential future pairings with . “When Cejudo won that belt, I saw that fight happening and I know he feels the same way; he wants to avenge that loss. If my last fight goes a different way, he’s calling me out after his win because I’ve won seven in a row and have a win over him. [As for Dillashaw], the fact is, he’s coming down to my weight and that was his decision, which doesn’t leave me much of a choice. He’s coming down to my weight and on top of that, he’s bragging about shutting it down — a division [I helped start] — and bragging about making money while people are losing the jobs they fought for their whole life. You’re fighting for the belt at my weight — a belt I tried my whole career to get — and on top of it, you’re bragging about the division closing and that sat with me wrong for sure.”
Having been an integral part of the introduction of the flyweight division, Benavidez described the possibility of the weight class being folded and more fighters being let go as a “devastating mess,” acknowledging that not getting a chance to fight for the title again — especially when it’s around the waist of someone he’s already beaten — would be disappointing, but he’s not focusing on either right now.
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Because the UFC hasn’t made any concrete declarations about the future of the flyweight ranks and he’s got a fight on Friday with a Top 15 flyweight looking to add to his run of success by knocking off the man with the most seniority in the division.
“I’m here, fighting for the division, still; fighting for myself, still; fighting for the title, still,” he said.
And until someone tells him otherwise, Benavidez isn’t going anywhere.