A fight against the elusive McGregor is something Cerrone clearly wants, but the chances it’ll come together any time soon are slim to none.
The chase is on.
Despite declaring he was no longer interested in chasing a (not so) money fight with Conor McGregor, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone didn’t hesitate to once again call out “The Notorious” after his dominant win against Al Iaquinta at UFC Ottawa on Saturday night (watch the highlights here).
”I want the title, whatever that means, man!” Cerrone told Michael Bisping in the cage as he held his son in his arms. “Unless, Conor McGregor, you want to fight me in July. I’m ready. Fourth of July, let’s do it!”
He expressed a bit more frustration with the difficulty in pinning down a McGregor match during a post fight interview with ESPN.
”Get a grip on life, bro, let’s go!” he said. “Come on! Put your bank account against my bank account! My bank account, I spent that at the bar!”
“Put your bank account against my bank account.” @Cowboycerrone jokes with @felderpaul and @KarynBryant about the stakes of a McGregor matchup pic.twitter.com/tITqwjxmtt
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) May 5, 2019
A fight between McGregor and Cerrone almost came to be following Cerrone’s last big win over Alexander Hernandez in January. Following that second round TKO win, McGregor went so far as to declare on social media “Congrats, I’ll fight you.” But the bout never came to be following a spat between the UFC and McGregor over shares in the company and placement of the fight as co-main event instead of main event.
McGregor has thus far remained silent on Cerrone’s latest win, spending the evening (as he does most evenings) pumping up his lucrative Proper 12 whiskey brand instead.
Unfortunately for Cerrone, these are still outstanding issues as far as McGregor is concerned. While various celebrity owners with tiny stakes in the company have joked about fighting McGregor over or outright gifting McGregor their UFC ownership stakes, the UFC seems dead set against any deal that will rock their financial boat as they sail into a new era with ESPN+. To show how serious they are, keep in mind they basically told Brock Lesner to bug off after he tried to renegotiate a higher flat fee contract with them.
So will Donald Cerrone fight Conor McGregor next? He’s a likely candidate should the UFC and McGregor come to terms over the much larger issues that currently keep them apart. That being said, we’d be shocked if those got worked out in time for a July card. More likely, we bet he may find himself fighting somewhere in the vicinity of the Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Dustin Poirier lightweight title fight in September to solidify next on the belt. Not a shabby consolation prize at all.