Henry Cejudo - Did you know?

Born to undocumented Mexican immigrants, Henry Cejudo spent years bouncing from state to state. The odds will be stacked against him in the freestyle competition, but that’s how he likes it. 1

Cejudo, crying the moment the match ended and wrapping himself in an American flag, defeated Tomohiro Matsunaga of Japan 2-2 on tiebreaker and 3-0 in the best-of-three match. Cejudo was 31st in last year’s world championships, his only prior tournament at this level. 2

That would be fine with Cejudo, who will be the No. seed in his weight class this weekend at the world team trials in Las Vegas. Henson has missed time with a knee injury, leaving a hole in the weight division that only Cejudo seems ready to fill. At 5′ 4″, he is a compact mass of muscle and focused aggression. Since he began wrestling in junior high, he has thought of little else but winning world and Olympic championships. Indeed, he is obsessed with those goals, driven by a desire to prove himself to the world, as well as to a father he never really knew. 4

Rare is the wrestler who’s featured in Sports Illustrated — especially prior to winning an Olympic medal, a world title, or earning his right to purchase an alcoholic beverage. But rare is the talent of Henry Cejudo. 5

Cejudo (pronounced say-HOO-doh) is a prodigy of the sort rarely found in the U.S. freestyle program, which typically �doesn’t get its hands on wrestlers until they’ve completed their college careers. He burst onto the international scene in November 2005 while still a senior in high school, winning the New York Athletic Club Holiday International after defeating ‘04 NCAA champion Jason Powell of Nebraska in the quarterfinals and dominating junior world champion Besik Kudukhov of Russia in the semis. Five months later Cejudo became the first high schooler to win a senior national championship since USA Wrestling became the sport’s governing body in 1983. “He is the future of wrestling,” says U.S. freestyle head coach Kevin Jackson. 3