Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone confessed that he just wasn’t in the right frame of mind when he fought Conor McGregor at UFC 246 last January.
“Donald showed up. Cowboy wasn’t there. Wrong guy showed up. Couldn’t get going. Couldn’t get excited. Couldn’t get fired up. Didn’t want to be there. Biggest fight. All the attention. My time to shine. It was crazy man. And I don’t why,” said Cerrone in a recent ESPN interview.
A lethargic Cerrone was knocked out by McGregor in just 40 seconds of the first round.
Cerrone clinched McGregor early but his nose was bloodied by McGregor’s shoulder strikes. The two separated allowing McGregor to unleash strikes which ended the match.
“You know, I haven’t really talked to anybody about that fight. Going in I hit his hip bone and that started the whole… And then I grabbed a hold of him just to get my bearings back. Then he did the jumping shoulder slam. It compounded the fog in my brain. And then he let go the head kick,” said Cerrone recalling the sequence of events which led to the knockout.
No one expected such a quick and dramatic end to the fight prompting ugly talks that Cerrone threw the fight which he denied.
“A lot of people said I threw the fight. I thought, man you got the wrong guy. There isn’t enough money in the world for me to throw the fight. Are you kidding me? Please,” said Cerrone.
“That’s just so funny. Guys are so stupid. For one, the infrastructure in the UFC would have to be so corrupt for them to pay me. You know. It’s asinine to even think that. But there are people who truly believe that the world is flat. There’s just dumb people out there. I don’t know. I tell you man. People are crazy.”
Cerrone confessed he could not explain his state of mind and did not have an explanation for the mental block which led to his quick loss.
“I went in there. Thumb in my ass. I can’t put words on it. It’s like being somewhere you don’t want to be, man. It’s like being in a spelling contest and you can’t spell. You got to stand in front of the world and spell. It’s just a weird feeling man. You just try to fake it, until you make it. But sometimes it’s tough,” said Cerrone.
Fans can only hope that Cerrone will be in a better frame of mind when he returns to the octagon to battle Anthony Pettis at UFC 249 on May 10.