Payton Talbott reveals advice UFC 323 opponent Henry Cejudo gave him back in the day

UFC 323 star Payton Talbott has revealed some advice he received from Henry Cejudo as he prepares to battle the former two-weight world champion this weekend.

At UFC 323, Payton Talbott has the chance to register the biggest win of his mixed martial arts career by far when he faces off against Henry Cejudo. ‘Triple C’ has revealed that this is set to be the final fight of his own career, and while a lot of fans and pundits are favoring Cejudo to break his three-fight losing streak, Talbott wants to go out there and show the world what all the hype is about.

As it turns out, Payton Talbott and Henry Cejudo have actually spent some time together, during which Cejudo gave the youngster some advice.

Payton Talbott reveals Henry Cejudo advice

“We kind of know each other,” Talbott told MMA Fighting. “We’re pretty familiar, so it would take a lot to like really surprise me, I think, and I think he knows that. So we’ll see what happens because I’m pretty chill, but yeah, I don’t know. I’m also interested to see what happens during fight week.”

“We hung out together for a couple days straight,” Talbott said. “He gave me a lot of like career-changing advice and tried to mentor me quite a bit because, I mean, he was supposed to retire. It was leading up to his Merab fight, he was supposed to retire after that, so it was like, we’re never going to fight each other, and here we are.

“He gave me a lot [of advice] actually. Without getting too specific, it was just, you know, how to structure your camp to mimic competition, in terms of mentality, what the body can take and just how important it is to have security outside of fighting — which I always knew, but he just had his whole life based around long-term security, like financial security. And he seemed to be very, very adamant about like, ‘You have no idea what’s going to come later on in life. 

“You always need to make sure you’re good financially because everyone will try to f*ck you.’ And yeah, it takes somebody telling you that and seeing it to really know, and now I’m in a position where he was really trying to do right with by me, and he was right.”

Quotes via MMA Fighting