“That was real” - Coach Eric Albarracin opens up on controversial Embedded encounter with Henry Cejudo

Eric Albarracin recently opened up on the controversial Embedded encounter with Henry Cejudo, which saw his longtime pupil relieve him of his coaching duties for his upcoming fight against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 298 this Saturday.

The famed MMA coach noted that Cejudo is a fierce competitor dating back to his Olympic wrestling career and revealed that it wasn't staged for the episode. During his appearance on today's episode of The MMA Hour, Albarracin mentioned that the episode was filmed in December and that he didn't work with the former two-division champion for his training camp. He said:

​

"That was real. I hadn't seen Henry [Cejudo] since after the fight with Aljamain [Sterling], he came to Brazil to the 'Pitbull' brothers...he even trained a little bit. Then I hadn't seen him since the day of the [UFC] Countdown...Like Henry said, this is a business and when Henry has a world title fight, I drop everything, I don't go to any other camps."

It will be interesting to see whether the changes Cejudo made to his training camp will be successful, as Albarracin will still be in his corner at UFC 298.

​

---

Eric Albarracin says Henry Cejudo asked him to corner him for UFC 298

Eric Albarracin revealed that Henry Cejudo asked him to corner him for his fight against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 298.

During the aforementioned appearance, Albarracin confirmed that 'Triple C' made the request when they arrived for fight week, and he accepted despite their split for his training camp. He said:

​

"[We] Saw each other, it was like, 'Reunited and it feels so good'. So, it [the split] was real and he said, 'Captain, I can't make this happen. I want you back in the corner."

'Triple C' indicated that he could very well retire from MMA should he come up short against Dvalishvili in his quest to regain the bantamweight championship.

​