Cejudo's Misfits Debut Gets a Late Rewrite as Wanna Walton Steps In

Henry Cejudo's crossover boxing headliner just got a full rewrite. With roughly two weeks to fight night, Deen the Great pulled out of Saturday's Misfits card at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, and 20-year-old Wanna Walton stepped in to face the former two-division UFC champion. It's a swap that changes the math on almost everything.

Lauren Blake, one of the hosts for the card, didn't sugarcoat it. She called the situation absurd and flat-out labeled it a curveball for everyone involved. Her point wasn't about Cejudo's résumé — 16-6 in MMA with eight knockouts and zero submissions — but about the fact that Walton is a completely different puzzle from the man Cejudo prepped for.

Why the Style Switch Matters

Blake broke down the problem in plain terms: Walton is a young, developed southpaw with a professional boxing background, and stylistically that flips the entire fight. Cejudo has spent his career solving orthodox strikers in a cage, not chasing a left-handed pro across a ring under boxing rules. Two weeks isn't much time to rebuild a game plan around a mirror-image stance.

The wrinkle is that Walton also brings an acting credit to the table, which is exactly the kind of influencer-adjacent flavor that's raised eyebrows around Misfits' promotional model. Tony Ferguson, himself booked in the influencer-boxing orbit despite a 26-11 pro MMA record, made no secret of his distaste for that mentality at Thursday's press conference.

Blake is no stranger to chaos on a big card. She was on the Netflix red carpet for Anthony Joshua's December stoppage of Jake Paul, worked the celebrity interviews, and walked out to the ring with Paul before the fight. She said she was standing right behind him when Joshua landed the finish — the one that broke Paul's jaw in the sixth — and heard the crack herself.

That night ended with Joshua improving to 29-4 (26 KO) and Paul falling to 12-2. Miami on Saturday is a smaller-stakes affair, but the late opponent change gives it its own uncertainty. Cejudo, coming off a unanimous-decision loss to Payton Talbott in his last UFC outing, now walks into a boxing ring against a fresh problem he only found out about days ago.