Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone needs the UFC as much as the UFC needs him.
As UFC President Dana White pointed out in a 2013 interview with the Daily Mail, “Fighting is in our DNA.” The phrase is echoed by UFC-branded merchandise.
It’s catchy. It conveys a badass message.
And for Cerrone, it’s 100 percent true.
The 25-6 (one no-contest) lightweight training out of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s esteemed Team Jackson-Winkeljohn doesn’t need an opponent in front of him to find the motivation to scrap. He’ll seek the fight out, and he’ll get it.
Cerrone most recently defeated No. 8-ranked lightweight Myles Jury at UFC 182 on January 3 in a fight that “upset” him. While Cowboy cruised for a clear-cut unanimous decision, he never felt pushed, and he never felt he really got the fight he needed.
Stop and think about that.
If you or I stepped into the cage with Jury and emerged unscathed after 15 minutes, we’d be thrilled.
“He didn’t hurt me. Thank you, gods of combat,” we’d say.
Cerrone was pissed.
He signed up for a fight, and he didn’t get one by his standards. Instead of blasting his opponent and wallowing in his disappointment, Cowboy did something to alleviate his dissatisfaction.
He waited around in Las Vegas, pestering the UFC brass for another fight until he got one.
That opportunity came as he drove home from Vegas, according to Cerrone during a UFC conference call Tuesday afternoon (audio courtesy of The Fight Corner‘s Heidi Fang).
“I was about midway home, driving the RV when Dana (White) called me like, ‘Hey, man. I don’t really want you taking this fight, but I’ve got an opportunity for you. Here you go,'” Cerrone said on the call.
“Dana was like, ‘I think you should take some time off, but I’m not telling you to take time off. I’m just talking to you as a friend.’ I was like, ‘All right, well, I’ll take the fight.'”
The offer was a familiar one for Cowboy, and the date was perfect. He’d face Benson Henderson—the No. 5 lightweight in the world and a man who defeated him twice before—January 18 at UFC Fight Night 59 in Boston.
Resheath the calculators, friends. I’ll do the math for you: That’s a two-week-and-one-day turnaround for Cerrone.
Fifteen days to fight one of the baddest 155-pound men on the planet, one who defeated him once via unanimous decision and once via submission already.
In true Cerrone fashion, though, there was no hesitation, no deliberation. There existed only an eager pen and a sloppy John Hancock, a formal acceptance to throw the armor and shield on again and march right back to battle.
“I guess I could sit back like every other fighter and sit and wait,” Cerrone said. “But I’m not every other fighter. I’m my own guy, and I don’t give a s–t. Bring the fights on. If I’m going to be the champ I gotta beat everyone anyway, so what does sitting and waiting and holding my position do?”
That’s Mr. Donald Cerrone of the UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
It’s a promotion defined by three letters, an acronym you’ve read and heard so many times you may have forgotten what it actually stands for, what it really means.
Ultimate. Fighting. Championship. The UFC is about the champions. There’s a belt in every division and a stable of killers gunning for it—obsessing over it—every day.
But walk it back to those first two words: “ultimate” and “fighting.” There’s more to the equation than just the championship. Beyond the champs, there are fighters who seemingly defined what it means to transcend the norm and become the “ultimate.”
Guys like Diego Sanchez, Joe Lauzon, Jim Miller and Donald Cerrone don’t know how to make a fight boring. Even more amazingly, it doesn’t even seem like they’re actively trying to make fights entertaining; that’s just all they know.
All-out fighting is, as White said, in their DNA.
For Cerrone, this mentality carries over to his outside life, where he’s constantly seeking something to boost his adrenaline and to silence his boredom.
His next rush will come in the form of a bushy-haired lightweight named Benson, and he acknowledges that, with a win, his seven-fight winning streak would be hard to ignore in the division’s title talks.
Then again, 155-pound champion Anthony Pettis is slated to face Rafael dos Anjos on March 14 at UFC 185. That means if Cowboy defeats Henderson, he’d have to wait for his shot at gold. Depending on the outcome of the Pettis vs. dos Anjos bout, Cerrone might have to wait until the fall or later.
In the eyes of an ultimate fighter, that simply will not do. When asked if he’d be willing to wait for a title shot in the wake of a UFC Fight Night 59 victory on Tuesday’s conference call, Cowboy said some Cowboy things.
“No, I’ll just go ahead and take on (top contender) Khabib (Nurmagomedov) then go home.”
With Cerrone, a fighter who fought six times in the past year (and went six-for-six in the process), it’s hard to do anything but accept the answer.
The guy fights. The belt might come, but until it does, he’ll be here, driving his RV, sipping his Budweiser, chewing his snuff and knocking down opponents.
He’ll continue to define what it means to be an ultimate fighter.
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