As Conor McGregor trains ahead of his super-fight with lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos, the Brazilian's last defeated opponent has conceded that he got his "ass whipped".
Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone was not trying to sugar-coat his first round loss to Dos Anjos back on December 19th while speaking to MMAJunkie.com, and when asked if he had reflected on the fight he gave a typically blunt dismissal of the idea:
There’s nothing to reflect on. I mean, what can I say? ‘Oh, maybe I didn’t warm up good enough.’ Or what, maybe the 12 seconds that the fight went, I didn’t do something good enough? I don’t understand what to reflect on. It would be different if I got mauled for five rounds. It was a 12-second fight. I got my ass whipped.
It certainly was a disappointing performance for 'Cowboy', who is now gearing up for a fight against another cowboy in Alex 'Cowboy' Oliveira, but it appears as though he has his eye on someone else judging by his comments on Conor McGregor.
The UFC featherweight champion pissed off a lot of fighters with his acceptance speech after winning 'Fighter of the year' at the annual MMA awards, as a video message was relayed to a room full of fighters and MMA personalities in which the Irishman basically called everyone there bums who were feeding off of his scraps.
Never one to back down from a bit of verbal warfare, Donald Cerrone claimed that he wants to fight McGregor, and even went as far as to call his potential opponent a "pussy".
I don’t give a sh-t. Give me Conor McGregor. I’ll fight that p-ssy. Other than that, I don’t care. Tell that dude to slow his f-cking roll. You can’t be just calling out 170-pounders. So, whatever. Enough of him.
Cerrone's stance during McGregor's rise was always that he had no problem so long as the Dubliner didn't take aim at him, but that changed after the infamous 'Go Big' press conference where McGregor disclosed his intention of moving up a weight class and clearing out the lightweight division.
So how does Cowboy get his hands on McGregor?
Having slipped to 5th in the lightweight rankings, a victory for Conor McGregor would mean that the chances of a fight with Cerrone would be slim, as McGregor would then be expected to defend his featherweight title before defending the lightweight belt, and there are a few fighters ahead of Cerrone in line for that shot, such as the winner of Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Tony Ferguson, and Eddie Alvarez.
However, should McGregor lose to Dos Anjos, and Cerrone defeat Oliveira, then it would be much easier for Dana White and the UFC to justify McGregor vs Cerrone when Conor returns to the lightweight action (presuming he will defend his featherweight belt in the interim).
There's no doubt that the fight would draw huge interest, so lets wait and see what the next month or so tells us about the chances of seeing it in the not-too-distant future.