Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone: Choker or Outmatched



What's your take? Chuck thinks that we have seen a lot of evidence that Cerrone doesn't perform at his best when the spotlight is on him.


Donald has been one of my favorites over the years but when the lights are shining he fails. He can string together some awesome performances but when the big lights show down, he goes down.

But I will still always root for him. Great fighter.
 
Donald is one the best fighters ever and Conor 2.0 made him look like child. One of the craziest performances we´ve seen

Donald is older and has been through many battles. Conor 2.0 beat a guy who would not come close to a title shot ever again.

Love watching Donald.
 
It's both. He's a notorious choker , but he was never gonna beat Conor either way. IMO
I think 4 years ago he had a great chance of beating Conor. That's when Conor was fighting at 145. Fast forward to 2020...not a chance Donald wins.
 
Both

chokes in fights he’s outmatched in

doesn’t put up a good or really any fight against people better than him

I don't agree--I thought he put up a very good fight the first time he fought Benson Henderson.
 
Its almost like he was already coming off two stoppage loses, and was hand picked to fall over in a third.

Weird.

As much as I love watching Cerrone, he was coming off 2 losses. They should have made Conor fight Gaethje.
 
Both. He completely freezes when he's outmatched. In his 2 biggest fights, he only threw a total of like 7 strikes and didn't even commit to a single one of them.

He the sort of guy who needs to settle into a fight for a few minutes before he's even comfortable throwing real shots, but the better fighters don't give him the chance.
That’s how I see it as well. He wants to settle in and get a feel for the fight and eat a few shots and take a couple rounds to get the opponents timing down. Conor sprinted at him and then never gave him an opportunity to relax. Conor fought exactly like he should and exploited Cerrone’s slow starts by going full throttle from the opening bell. It ended up looking like a drag race where one car shot out towards the finish line and the other flooded the engine and never even got the car to start.

Cerrone is an old dog that probably can’t change that at this point in his career and Conor knew it and capitalized on it.
 
It could be both. Cowboy has choked in all his biggest fights. It's why he has so many first round losses on his record. It doesn't mean he wasn't outmatched anyway.
 
He has choked on the big stage but shouldnt be known as a choker imo. He has put on a lot of fun, exciting fights casuals can get into
 
Outmatched. He's a second tier fighter who has been fighting top tier competition. The jump from his skill level to that of Gaethje, Mcgregor, Ferguson, and Khabib is huge. The Ferguson fight was good until the injury, exacerbated by Cowboy's stupid decision to blow his nose. Gaethje and Conor are both violent ko artists, and his lack of first round dynamisism led to early finishes. He is though, very competitive with everyone else in the LW division.
 
A bit of both. He's a solid top 10 guy but at no point could he have been the champ.

You'd imagine the guy with the most fights in the UFC who also partakes in extreme sports as a hobby would have very little anxiety over a fight.
Lol come on bro he's been in the top 5 multiple times and won 8 straight at 155. He could have been champ (especially if he wasn't a head case). Eddie won the belt ffs. I'd put him ahead of guys like Pettis as well and about even with Benson.
 
Outmatched. He's a second tier fighter who has been fighting top tier competition. The jump from his skill level to that of Gaethje, Mcgregor, Ferguson, and Khabib is huge. The Ferguson fight was good until the injury, exacerbated by Cowboy's stupid decision to blow his nose. Gaethje and Conor are both violent ko artists, and his lack of first round dynamisism led to early finishes. He is though, very competitive with everyone else in the LW division.
Gaethje is not better than Cerrone and time will reveal that. Other 3 you mentioned are legit though.
 
I've never felt Cerrone being this good of a fighter, I've really never paid attention to his fight except a few of them left and right.
But he was for sure an absolute embarrassment to himself and the sport, from the build up to the fight itself.
One of the most stupid fighter I've ever seen. There's a reason why ppl were saying before the fight he's the perfect guy to get paid to take a dive, whether true or not...
 
As others have said - a bit of both. He's a journeyman fighter, pretty damn good one though. I'd say he's exceeded expectations considering his apparent lack of dedication to the sport. Tons of mileage and damage sustained, past his prime for a while now. Conor was his 5th fight within a year, who in their right mind would think he'd perform at top level? Also, his lack of injuries/ability to jump into fights on short notice is a pretty clear indicator that he's never been commited to intensive training.
 
Gaethje is not better than Cerrone and time will reveal that. Other 3 you mentioned are legit though.
Gaethje isn't better than Cerrone? Wtf? He beat him up for a round and eventually TKO'd him. You're either casual af and didn't know they recently fought, or you need to be placed in a group home for retards. That's the most clear cut evidence you can get to decide if someone's better than another.

I hope you're trolling, because I seriously feel stupider having read that.
 
Gaethje isn't better than Cerrone? Wtf? He beat him up for a round and eventually TKO'd him. You're either casual af and didn't know they recently fought, or you need to be placed in a group home for retards. That's the most clear cut evidence you can get to decide if someone's better than another.

I hope you're trolling, because I seriously feel stupider having read that.
Lmao your join date must be when you started watching MMA if you think beating somebody means you're better when it comes to MMA. Cerrone beat Eddies Ass and Eddie starched Gaethje if you want to use MMA math man. So Cerrone is better than Eddie, Eddie is better than Gaethje and Gaethje is better than Cerrone? That makes a lot of sense! How long has Gaethje been in the UFC? Let's see how he's doing 30 fights from now. Impressive 3 wins but he did eye poke Barboza. You might as well say Silva is worse than Jared Cannonier and Bisping while you're at it.

You're high on him rn because he's won 3 in a row but what happens when he loses? Were you even around when Cerrone was streaking and fought RDA? Are we just going to pretend styles, age, damage sustained etc.. Mean nothing? Gaethje's little streak rn is no more impressive than Cerrone's 3 fight streak before the Tony fight, let alone his 8 fight streak which led to his title shot. Winning a fight doesn't automatically make you the better fighter, especially when that fighter has been around a long time and is at the tail end of their career.
 
Donald is one the best fighters ever and Conor 2.0 made him look like child. One of the craziest performances we´ve seen
Chuck Liddell is one of the best fighters ever, and present-day Tito made him look like a child.
 
Lmao your join date must be when you started watching MMA if you think beating somebody means you're better when it comes to MMA. Cerrone beat Eddies Ass and Eddie starched Gaethje if you want to use MMA math man. So Cerrone is better than Eddie, Eddie is better than Gaethje and Gaethje is better than Cerrone? That makes a lot of sense! How long has Gaethje been in the UFC? Let's see how he's doing 30 fights from now. Impressive 3 wins but he did eye poke Barboza. You might as well say Silva is worse than Jared Cannonier and Bisping while you're at it.

You're high on him rn because he's won 3 in a row but what happens when he loses? Were you even around when Cerrone was streaking and fought RDA? Are we just going to pretend styles, age, damage sustained etc.. Mean nothing? Gaethje's little streak rn is no more impressive than Cerrone's 3 fight streak before the Tony fight, let alone his 8 fight streak which led to his title shot. Winning a fight doesn't automatically make you the better fighter, especially when that fighter has been around a long time and is at the tail end of their career.
You said Gaethje isn't better than Cowboy. If you're talking career-wise, then no shit, Cowboy has had the better career, something you didn't specify. I'm talking about right now. 2020. What anyone would assume based on the original statement you made. Fuck all what Gaethje did years ago, we're talking about right now, when the dude's looking better than he ever has. He's in his prime, and like you said, Cowboy's at the tail end of his career. You're also acting like Gaethje landed some lucky punch in their fight. Cowboy had no answer for the guy and ended up getting finished. And yes, Cannonier is better than Silva RIGHT NOW. I'm not talking about legacies.

If you're going to compare their streaks, then fine, they're similar. The only difference is that Gaethje's last fight was a dominant win against the guy you're telling me is as good as him right now. And for the record, I like Cowboy more than Gaethje, and was rooting for him in their fight. Rewatch it and tell me that the two didn't look like they were in different leagues. By your logic, who's to say that Conor isn't better than Cowboy right now. They both have lots of great wins. Forget the head to head fight.
 
Donald is one the best fighters ever and Conor 2.0 made him look like child. One of the craziest performances we´ve seen

one of the best fighters ever?
the fuck, he is not even top 50 of the best fighters ever. he is very active, that he is for sure.

but he always lost CONVINCINGLY when he had to fight top dogs. donald is in no way, shape or form 'one of the best fighters ever'

conor fans getting full on delusional after a first win in 3 years against cerrone, who checked out in interviews before the fight started
 
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