The inevitability of a coming decline is a far more imposing opponent than Donald Cerrone’s actual foe on Sunday night in Pittsburgh, unknown Brazilian Alex Oliveira.
Nobody in combat sports ages like fine wine. This isn’t a popular topic of conversation, but it’s a fact of life. Our favorite fighters will eventually pass the point of no return. We will see them battered, bruised and bloodied, on the receiving end of knockouts and one-sided decisions. No matter how much talk we hear of “motivation” or “new coaching” or “better nutrition,” the prime fighters we once knew aren’t coming back.
There are occasional exceptions to this rule. Robbie Lawler had some of the finest performances of his career between the ages of 31 and 33, after more than 12 years as a professional. Rafael dos Anjos captured the lightweight title after years as a good fighter, but not an elite one. Fabricio Werdum won his heavyweight title at 37 and has never looked better.
Dan Henderson, aided by testosterone replacement therapy, knocked out Fedor Emelianenko and put on an all-timer of a fight against Shogun Rua after the tender age of 40. Randy Couture had a three-fight winning streak in the UFC at age 47
In boxing, Archie Moore stayed competitive against elite fighters into his late 40s, while George Foreman had a second life as a heavyweight champion in the middle of his fifth decade. Wladimir Klitschko held his heavyweight title and a long winning streak into his late 30s.
Up to a certain point, crafts born of experience can make up for the physical cost combat sports take on the body.
Better timing makes up for declining speed, which is why so many older fighters turn into accomplished counterpunchers. Accuracy and efficiency compensate for the inability to work at the same pace. Improved defensive skills can mask a declining chin. A fighter who liked to trade in the pocket might rely more heavily on the clinch and takedowns to limit exchanges on the feet.
After a while, however, no amount of increased technical skill and intangible knowledge can make up for the physical decline. Chins crack for good. Reflexes slow past the point of recovery. Cardio goes away, never to return.
This doesn’t mean that fighters past their prime are incapable of winning fights. Henderson knocked out Tim Boetsch last June, but only the blindest of the blind would deny that Hendo isn’t the fighter he was five years ago. Rua looked good in a close fight against a similarly sharp (and aged) Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, but the physical marvel of 2005 or even the crafty but still athletic champion of 2010 isn’t coming back.
What does any of this have to do with Donald Cerrone, who’s still in his prime by any reasonable standard? It only took Rafael dos Anjos 66 seconds to demolish him in their rematch for the UFC lightweight title, but prior to that Cerrone had run off an impressive eight consecutive victories at 155 pounds, including wins over Benson Henderson, Jim Miller, Edson Barboza and Eddie Alvarez.
The simple truth, however, is that most fighters don’t fight successfully into their late 30s or even 40s.
The reason Lawler and to a lesser extent dos Anjos stand out so much is because most fighters aren’t making massive, career-altering improvements in their early 30s; instead, they’re desperately trying to stay just ahead of the onrushing aging curve.
Georges St-Pierre retired at 32 after a rough fight with Johny Hendricks that required all of his considerable craft. Josh Koscheck went 1-5 after turning 33. B.J. Penn went 1-5-1 after turning 31 and looked downright terrible in his attempt at a comeback at age 34. Jon Fitch has gone 4-4-1 after his 33rd birthday with wins over the illustrious Marcelo Alfaya and Dennis Hallman along with a Yushin Okami who was also on the decline.
The list goes on and on. Nate Marquardt is 2-5 after turning 33. The great Fedor Emelianenko’s rough three-fight losing streak started shortly after turning 33. The 4-5 stretch with which Matt Hughes ended his career began after his 33rd birthday.
Cerrone turns 33 next month.
The sheer volume of fights Cerrone has taken in his career can’t be helping on that front. After his bout with Oliveira on Sunday, he will have 20 fights in the UFC under his belt, an average of four per year. That means cutting weight regularly, which takes a toll on the body; it means training sessions; and camps require sparring sessions, which do their own brand of damage.
He’s also been hittable over the course of his career, and it seems clear that fighters who get hit less tend to have longer prime years.
Cerrone might be the toughest guy in the world, but all of that activity—the sparring rounds, the drilling sessions, the strength-and-conditioning sessions and the weight cuts—at an accelerated pace will still catch up with him at some point.
Keeping an active schedule as a fighter isn’t necessarily the problem or the cause of decline; it’s the training. Where do injuries tend to happen? Overwhelmingly in gym sessions. The UFC is actively trying to address this problem and to create smarter training environments, which should extend fighters’ careers in the long run, but nothing can stop Father Time forever.
It gets harder and harder to recover from injuries as you age, and tweaks that seemed minor years ago turn into nagging or even serious problems. Skill improvements cease and aging fighters even regress, whether because they’re just not interested in trying new things or it’s so hard for them to consistently keep grinding in the gym that they simply don’t have the time to add new things.
It’s a question of when, not if, a fighter hits the wrong side of the aging curve, and there are good reasons to wonder whether that day is coming sooner rather than later for the UFC’s action-fighting staple.
Cerrone is firmly into his 30s and is at the point where most fighters begin to show the wear. He has kept an active schedule for a period of years, has taken a substantial amount of damage, both of which point to a shortened prime or at least not an abnormally long one. He hasn’t made substantial skill improvements in years but simply sharpened what he already does well.
None of that means that Cerrone won’t handle his business against Oliveira on Sunday night as a nearly 3-1 favorite, and even if he does come up short, that hardly implies that he would go winless for the rest of his career. Despite a physical decline, he would still have enough veteran craft and depth of skill to squeeze out victories for years to come.
Even if he does start to lose fights that he would have won during his prime, Cerrone’s name value guarantees that he’ll stick around the upper portions of cards in the future.
That’s one of the great ironies of declining fighters: They’ve been around for long enough that fans know who they are and are therefore more inclined to continue to receive attention even past the peaks of their abilities.
Nevertheless, Cerrone will eventually hit the wrong side of the aging curve. There’s no way around that. When and how it happens will tell us a great deal about whether more of his contemporaries would be better off to mimic his active schedule, or whether only the Cowboy is durable enough to live that kind of life.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.
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