Dana White is not the only one looking to put a stop to Donald Cerrone’s planned UFC comeback.
Former UFC double champion and current color commentator, Daniel Cormier, is also trying to prevent “Cowboy” from stepping foot inside of the Octagon again. His reasoning is different than that of White, but “DC” still brings up some valid points.
In case you forgot, Cerrone left the sport after losing to Jim Miller via submission back in July 2022. That fight was the seventh in a row that Cerrone failed to win. In turn, the veteran fan favorite decided to step away from MMA for good and officially announced his retirement.
Like most retired MMA fighters, Cerrone has continued to train and is eager to test his skill once again inside of the cage. The only issue is that “Cowboy” has been openly taking performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to allow his body to return to a more youthful state. That’s all well and good, but a potential return to fighting for Cerrone could rub some people the wrong way.
“The one thing about Cowboy, is that it’s very refreshing to watch how open he’s been with all of this,” said Cormier on his YouTube channel. “He never lied. He never lied about what he was doing, what he was going to do, and how he was going to apply it to his life. And I’m all for a guy that has personal goals. And I love Cowboy… But at the end of the day, for years now, he’s been openly using steroids.
“When you’re training, you start to feel better. You start to feel like yourself again, especially with the help. Then you go, ‘I want to fight again.’ But at the end of the day, Cowboy has been doing steroids, openly!”
While Cerrone plans to cycle off of his PEDs the right way and pass the drug tests he needs to pass in order to return to UFC, it sets a bad precedent.
“He’s not been clean,” said Cormier. “And even if he can come back, take tests, pass those tests to get back, he had to do all those things, all those enhancers to allow for him to feel like he can compete at that level again.
“So he would test clean, but isn’t that just a loophole? Isn’t it just a loophole like the guys that when they get hurt, they get out of the testing pool, then when they recover from the injury, then they re-enter the testing pool? It’s not wrong. It’s not illegal. But is it right? Because you truly have been enhanced to get to where you are and how you feel, and feel good enough to come back and fight in the elite organization of the UFC.
“To me, it doesn’t feel right.”
Luckily for Cerrone, Cormier doesn’t make the rules. Some believe Conor McGregor used a similar “loophole” while recovering from his broken leg injury from 2021. The difference is that McGregor would have been using the “loophole” to recover from an injury, not jumpstart an aging body like Cerrone.
In any case, “DC” doesn’t like the smell of it.
“Imagine if he comes back and he looks like a world-beater,” added Cormier. “I’m against it. I’m honestly against the idea that you could find a loophole, go in and use that loophole, feel better while using that loophole, come back and fight because you can pass a clean test.
“I like Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone. I’m against Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone getting to compete in the UFC after openly doing what he’s been doing for the last two and a half years.”