Henry Cejudo's return from retirement didn't go according to plan, but he can at least say he had some fun on his way out. Even if the blood spilled at UFC 323 was at his expense.

The former two-division UFC champion lost his retirement fight to former sparring partner Payton Talbott by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27) Saturday inside Las Vegas' T-Mobile Arena. It was a high-paced fight with some heavy blows landed, but Talbott was the one who showed why so many people are excited about him.

"I'm young and I'm only going to keep getting better," Tablott said in his post-fight interview. "Henry, I respect the guy so much. He taught me a lot early on and the least I can do is learn from these legends and pay it forward."

The fight was set up as a dangerous striker (Talbott) against an Olympic wrestling champion (Cejudo), but we got an early sign of how things would go down when Tablott scored the only two takedowns of the first round.

He made sure to let the audience know what he was doing.

"I was ecstatic, then I got a little greedy and he ended up on top," Talbott said.

The fight was ultimately decided by Talbott's ability to inflict damage on Cejudo. His reach advantage was obvious and helped negate the danger of Cejudo's grappling. By the end of the second round, Cejudo's right eye had blood all around it.

Cejudo wasn't overwhelmed, landing some big blows of his own and making the third round respectable, but it's clear which way the decision was going when the final horn sounded. The two fighters still opted to empty the tank in the final seconds, with Talbott landing one last knee to the body.

In the moments after the fight, Cejudo admitted to UFC CEO Dana White that Talbott had "f***ed me up" and seemed to successfully lobby for a bonus.

Before his first retirement, Cejudo had a Hall of Fame résumé as a double UFC champion in the flyweight and bantamweight divisions, and the man to unseat one of the MMA GOATs in Demetrious Johnson. He theoretically called it a career at 33 years old after defending the latter against Dominick Cruz in 2020, but a return always felt inevitable.

That return came in 2023 and it didn't go as hoped. Cejudo failed to reclaim the bantamweight belt against Aljamain Sterling, got worked over by Merab Dvalishvili as the Georgian marched to the title and lost to Song Yadong in bizarre fashion due to an eye-poke. 

After three straight losses, Cejudo opted to call it a career for a second time and got a rising star in Talbott on his way out. The result was the same, but he didn't seem too regretful as he left the Octagon.

Check out complete UFC 323 results, highlights and round-by-round play-by-play here.