Donald Cerrone headlined the UFC Fight Night Ottawa card, defeating Al Iaquinta by way of unanimous decision.
A mature Cerrone believes a younger version of himself would’ve quit against Iaquinta at UFC Fight Night Ottawa.
“I was telling my corners, I felt terrible starting that fight,” Cerrone said after the event (via Alexander K. Lee of MMA Fighting). “I couldn’t find it, back in the locker room I didn’t want to warm up. I didn’t want to get ready, I didn’t want to hit pads, I didn’t want to wrestle. I didn’t want to fight until the second round. People always say I’m a slow starter and, ‘What Cowboy are you going to get?’ And we train hard, we train so hard and we try and find for our opponents to beat us so that we can show up and beat them on our worst day. And today was my worst day. Thank God it’s been 41 fights in Zuffa that I’ve been here because I was able to, like, fake it ‘til you make it, ‘cause you fake it long enough and you find it. In the second round it was like, there it is and let’s go to work. It’s just tough, because I think the younger me would have quit. It’s just crazy, there’s like memes out there of lions with little cubs saying, ‘I would have quit until I realized who was watching’ and it was like, yeah, motherf*cker, let’s go.”
Cerrone is now in the midst of a three fight winning streak and is ranked #8 in the UFC lightweight division.
One thing Cerrone readily admits is that it is a crapshoot as to which Cerrone will fight in the Octagon.
“The Cowboy you get is a crapshoot,” Cerrone said. “If it was Al, he had my number, he should have just f*ckin’ turned it on in the first round because I was lost. I don’t know where I was, but I wasn’t in the fight.”
The fighter also stated after the event that he would be disappointed if the UFC didn’t offer a shot at the lightweight gold.
