Donald Cerrone’s march to a UFC lightweight title shot is something to behold. Since losing to now-champion Rafael dos Anjos at UFC Fight Night 27 in 2013, Cerrone has pushed through eight top contenders (including one former divisional champ). He now has arguably the biggest fight of his career in a rematch in the main event of UFC on FOX 17 in December, yet, when hearing him speak about it or how he spends his time, he’s equal parts excited and nonchalant about the whole thing.
“All I needed was a date, now I got the date,” he told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s The MMA Hour.
Four months is a long time, which means Cerrone gets to “do a lot of wakeboarding and screwing around” before the earnest work of camp starts. If ‘Cowboy’ is feeling any unique pressure, there’s not much evidence of it.
In fact, Cerrone admits he’s been lobbying UFC brass to make a fight official, but not this fight, necessarily. Almost anything would do, apparently. “I just wanted to go fight,” he explained. It didn’t matter if it was for the UFC lightweight title or in another weight class, he just wanted to be active for the sake of being active.
Cerrone’s attitude might be confused for being care-free, but he’s invested in his athletic career. Consider some of the pre-announcement chatter between he and the Brazilian champion. On Twitter, Cerrone hinted dos Anjos was on some form of performance-enhancing drug (PED) and couldn’t sign to fight because he needed to ‘cycle off’. The champion responded with promises of a severe beating.
As far as Cerrone is concerned, much of this was him doing so for the fun of it. “I was just getting a rise out of him. That’s all,” he contended. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s working hard and doing what he has to do. I was just pissing him off…just screwing around.”
But, he claims, his trolling was also done with a purpose: retaliation for what Cerrone sees as unsavory behavior. The two had interacted at a recent UFC show, which Cerrone contends was a pleasant experience until the champion later insulted him in the media.
“Yeah, and I was cordial with him. Everything was fine, but then he made comments like he’s going to beat my ass worse than anyone’s beaten anyone’s ass ever,” Cerrone recalled. “Oh ok, now when I walk away you’re going to start poking fun at me? Let’s go.
“So, then I went and called him Frankenstein and I told him he does steroids,” he noted, laughing. “It made me more upset that he was laughing and joking and cordial with me on the one hand,” Cerrone admitted. “I was just like, ‘Come on, man’.”
That might be as serious as Cerrone gets these days. He’s on a record-run at 8-0 and getting his first UFC title shot while competing on national television, but somehow isn’t anymore enthused about the fight than any other UFC could make for him. “Cool! Why not? Great. I don’t care,” Cerrone said of fighting on a platform as big as FOX.
That is cool, he agrees, but he’s not too picky about any of these trivial details. He’ll fight whenever, wherever against seemingly whoever at this point. For him, it’s part of the lifestyle. “I’ll be the first fight of the night on a Wednesday night fight card,” he claimed. “I don’t care. It don’t make no difference to me. FOX will be cool. Makes no difference to me.”
Perhaps more importantly, it’s not really what he’s focused on right about now. As Cerrone sees it, the champion was wound up and he’s got a date on the calendar with a time to place to meet him. Oh, and there’s also some time to kill before work gets serious. For ‘Cowboy’, this is about looking at life a little differently.
“All I knew was I was fighting in Orlando,” Cerrone said of the real appeal of fighting dos Anjos for the title on FOX. “I get to screw around at Epcot Center and Disney World and go wake boarding with all my wake boarding buddies. That’s what I thought.”