UFC champ-champ Henry Cejudo to undergo surgery, might miss the rest of 2019

Just days after having become only the fourth simultaneous dual-division champion in UFC history, Henry Cejudo said he is undergoing shoulder surgery that will likely put him on the shelf for the remainder of 2019.

Cejudo told ESPN on Wednesday that he will undergo shoulder surgery to repair his subscapularis muscle in his left shoulder. Cejudo said that he injured the shoulder in the first round of his bout with Marlon Moraes at UFC 238 earlier this month in Chicago.

That injury was compounded by a severely injured ankle that Cejudo suffered while training in the days leading up to the Moraes bout. Despite those injuries, Cejudo fought his way to a third-round TKO victory that earned him the champ-champ designation.

The ankle injury isn't expected to need surgery, but Cejudo indicated that he will need four to five months of recovery following shoulder surgery before being cleared to fully train again.

Cejudo already held the UFC flyweight title heading into the Moraes bout, but added the vacant bantamweight championship by defeating him. Only four fighters have ever held UFC titles in two divisions simultaneously. The others are current heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier, current women's bantamweight and featherweight titleholder Amanda Nunes, and Conor McGregor, who held the featherweight and lightweight titles simultaneously.

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To date, Cormier is the only fighter to have defended at least one of the belts while in possession of the other. Nunes is scheduled for her first title defense since becoming a champ-champ when she faces Holly Holm in defense of the bantamweight belt at UFC 239 on July 6 in Las Vegas.

Cejudo is the only UFC fighter to hold two championship belts simultaneously, while also having won an Olympic gold medal, which he achieved at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.