Henry Cejudo sees nothing left at flyweight for Alexandre Pantoja if he gets his hand raised at UFC 317.

UFC flyweight champion Pantoja (29-5 MMA, 13-3 UFC) will look to notch his fourth title defense when he takes on Kai Kara-France (25-11 MMA, 8-4 UFC) in Saturday’s co-main event (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

A former UFC dual-champion, Cejudo thinks Pantoja should move up to bantamweight to challenge Merab Dvalishvili if he gets past Kara-France – even though the Brazilian dismissed the move. Cejudo is not ruling out Pantoja’s chances against “The Machine.”

“With a victory for Pantoja, and he does put Kai Kara-France out, he’s got to move up,” Cejudo said on his “Pound 4 Pound” podcast with Kamaru Usman. “I know he recently did an interview about him not going up – man, he’s lapped the division. He could surprise. I know Pantoja very, very well.

“He could surprise Merab with his back take, with takedowns, too. Pantoja is super underrated with a lot of this stuff. You can’t say he doesn’t have a shot. I just feel like Pantoja has to give himself that opportunity to go up because he’s lapping that division, and we’ve got to see if he can make history.”

Cejudo coached both Pantoja and Kara-France on Season 24 of “The Ultimate Fighter.” He points to Pantoja’s experience and activity as the main factor in this fight.

“Kai Kara-France, he’s only beat Steve Erceg and other than that, he hasn’t really been that active,” Pantoja said. “That’s his only win in the last three years, but it was an impressive win. It was a great overhand. But other than that, it’s all been Pantoja. Pantoja has been super active. He has really resurrected the flyweight division, and I feel like Pantoja is just too much for KKF.”

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Henry Cejudo: Alexandre Pantoja should go up a division after UFC 317