Donald Cerrone made some strong statements regarding some issues within the Jackson-Winkeljohn Academy that his next opponent Mike Perry had previously brought up.
Late last week, Mike Perry dropped a bit of a bombshell when he revealed some “tension” between his upcoming opponent Donald Cerrone and the Jackson-Winkeljohn Academy. Specifically, he claimed that the reason why “Cowboy” decided to move back to Denver was because “no one was kissing his ass” at the famed Albuquerque gym anymore.
“I haven’t seen it first hand (the tension brewing),” Perry said. “But I heard that he physically came here and asked them not to train me. For them not to allow me to come into the gym and to show him some respect even though… he hasn’t done anything for this gym in quite some time.”
These claims were apparently true, but according to Cerrone himself, it was within reason.
“I went to talk to Greg and Wink and say, ‘Hey, this guy’s brand new to the gym. He’s only been here one camp, a couple of months,” Cerrone explained on his recent appearance on the JRE MMA Show (transcript by MMA Fighting). “I don’t think that it’s okay for him to come in and call me out. That’s not right. So if he is doing that, I don’t think we should allow him to train here for this fight.”
“Then f—ng Winkeljohn tells me, ‘I thought you called him out’, he’s just a sh-t-ass and lies to your face, so to me he was like, ‘Sure, no problem, we’ll clear it up and we won’t have any issues.’”
Cerrone says he felt betrayed when the coaching staff decided to side with Perry, instead.
“With Greg, his name is on that building. It’s Jackson-Wink. Jackson-f—ng-Wink,” Cerrone explained. “When it came time to pick the decision and they said, ‘We want to go with Perry.’ Why the f—k didn’t you stand — because Greg’s still with me — he’s like, ‘I’ll just come to the ranch and we’ll sort this out.’ And I’m like, ‘What the f—k are you talking about?’ You tell me I can’t come into the Jackson-Wink gym, but you’re going to backdoor and come into my f—ng house and we’re going to train to fight while Perry’s there at the gym.
“You see everything he does and then you’re going to come and you’re going to train me, not to mention you’re holding classes there and — you might not be training him to beat me, but there’s a lot of people there that have trained with me for f—ng years,” he continued.
“So to me that was the point I was saying. Can we just not have him there for this camp?”
Cerrone has been part of Greg Jackson’s team since the early days of his UFC career, and has seen many of his teammates come and go. For him, the stable has not been the same since Mike Winkeljohn entered the picture in 2007.
“When Winkeljohn merged over, all the big pros left, it turned into a puppy mill,” Cerrone said. “Back when Greg had it, and it was its own school, you couldn’t turn up to a pro class. Some guy couldn’t just come here, knock on your door, and the next thing you know he has shin pads on and he’s sparring.
“Literally at the new gym, bums come in off the street — I swear to God — and will come in and put stuff on and fight. That’s a true story. Random bums off the street. That would never happen back in the day.”
“You should have an infrastructure set in place, especially if you’re the greatest at one time,” he added. “If your winning percentages are in the 80s and 90s and now they’re in the 20s. I have no clue what the winning record of our gym is, but it’s nothing like it used to be. It’s f—ng asinine to me.”
Cerrone and Perry will co-headline UFC Fight Night 139 on November 10th in Denver, Colorado.