Why Donald Cerrone may be the UFC’s most unique fighter
LAS VEGAS – It was a little before 8 a.m. Wednesday, and the RV Park in the shadow of the Strip was mostly quiet. There was next to no activity, and the chirping of birds created a serene environment.
Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone climbed down the steps of his 40-foot RV and placed his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. In three days, he would take part in one of the most important fights of his career, facing Eddie Alvarez in the co-main event at UFC 178 on Saturday at the MGM Grand.
Most of the work for a fighter is done by this point and it's mostly a waiting game.
There are interviews to do to promote the show and, of course, the weight cut. And then, for most fighters, it's hours upon hours of sitting around and waiting.
Cerrone, though, isn't most fighters. He had a series of interviews and appearances he had to make on Wednesday that would last until about 3 p.m.
Cerrone laughed off the suggestion that he'd relax once his work duties had ended.
"C'mon, man," he said, chuckling. "I don't want to relax. I want to be at the lake playing. I'd be at the lake right now if I [didn't have these interviews] to do. I believe my obligations today end at 3. I'm going to pick up my buddy, Rusty Malinoski. He's a professional wake boarder, No. 1 in the world. As soon as he lands, we'll go to the lake and play."
His plans for the week outside of the things the UFC requires him to do "are off the hip, to be honest with you.”
“Friday is tough because I'm cutting weight and I'm lethargic as hell, but other than that, we'll hit the lake,” Cerrone said. “I'll play and play hard. It's what I do."
Unlike most of the fighters on Saturday’s show who flew to Las Vegas, Cerrone drove his RV, which he bought with bonus money he'd won for the series of great fights he's been in. He towed a large boat and had a friend drive his pickup.
He arrived in Las Vegas from Albuquerque, N.M., last week and has been a frequent visitor to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area since.
"I just love to be out on the lake, wakeboard, surfing, just playing, man," Cerrone said. "We'll go shoot some guns. A couple of days ago, we went out to shoot some shotguns out at the Clark County range. I just want to be active, man. That's it.
"I want to keep my mind away from the Strip and all this craziness as much as possible."
Cerrone has a satellite dish on top of his RV and said when the team drove to Atlantic City, N.J., in July for a fight with Jim Miller, they binge-watched all 40 episodes of Game of Thrones.
He'll occasionally watch UFC fights on it, but scoffed when asked if he ever watched a Bellator card while traveling.
"C'mon man, are you [kidding] me with that question," he said. "No. Absolutely not. Not only haven't I ever watched it, I haven't even thought of watching it. Not once. That's not a channel we tune into."
And so, he admitted, he'd never seen Alvarez fight, even though Alvarez is a two-time Bellator lightweight champion, widely regarded as one of the best 155-pounders in the world and with Michael Chandler took part in two of the top fights in MMA history.
His coaches are more than familiar with Alvarez, but Cerrone hasn't laid eyes on any footage of an Alvarez fight. At least he'd heard of Alvarez, though.
Chandler is the face of Bellator and is also regarded as one of the top lightweights in the world, but he's a complete mystery to Cerrone.
"I don't even know who Michael Chandler is," Cerrone said. "No idea. Zero. None. People sometimes ask me about him, not much, but once in a while they do, so I'm familiar with the name, but I've never really heard of the guy.
"I believe you when you tell me he and Eddie had some great fights. I've heard that. My coaches have obviously seen him, but I don't care. I have so much [expletive] I'd rather be doing. When a Saturday comes, I'm up at 5 a.m. doing my thing. If it's not someone immediate to me that I'm fighting, I've got better things I'd rather do."
Cerrone, who said he eats plenty of candy, including Milk Duds and Fruit Rollups, in his free time, knows he's in Las Vegas to work. And while Cerrone is one of the sport's toughest guys and most fearless fighters, it's not always easy getting himself into the mind frame to fight.
He seems to approach his fights as he does his play, but he said it's difficult to get into fight mode.
"Everyone at home sitting on their couches, they think it's so easy to fight," he said. "Stepping inside that cage is probably the hardest thing in the world to do. I truly believe that. Me standing here now? Yeah, man, I'll tell you, 'I'm going to go out there and kick ass. I'm going to go out and let it go. Best condition of my life. Best training, blah, blah, blah.' Same old [expletive].
"Saturday night under the lights, when it's time to go and you have to step it up, there's kind of a, 'Oh [expletive]! Oh [expletive]!' Being able to figure out that switch, sometimes it will go on and sometimes it won't. … It ain't easy."
But he's one of the UFC's most exciting fighters because he's able to turn that switch on more often than not. In his days in the World Extreme Cagefighting organization, he said he didn't have the same level of confidence he does now and it could have cost him the WEC title.
"Believing in myself back in those days was a big factor, and as I said, I'd second-guess myself a lot, a lot, a lot," he said. "I'd go, 'Man, I'm fighting Ben Henderson. Holy cow.' I'd get in there and I'd be thinking, 'Is he better than me?' Those were questions I was asking myself.
"But I finally had a talk with myself and I said, 'Who the [expletive] are you talking to?' And I pulled it together. Now, man, I feel awesome. I'm where I need to be mentally and I'm ready to go."
But fight careers are notoriously short, although Cerrone says with a straight face that he wants to fight until he's 50.
Lindsey Sheffield, his girlfriend, is studying to be a nurse practitioner and he jokes, "She's my back-up plan."
He's only 31 and in the prime of his career, but knows he has to begin thinking of the future.
"She's very good with our money even though people think I spend it all," he said. "Now, let's just say I got $200,000 [for a fight], well, 33 1/3 of that is gone, immediately, to taxes. Twenty percent off the top goes to my coaches, so now we're left with a hundred grand. People say, 'You got $200,000; what did you do with it all?' Well, the first hundred of it is gone off the top before I can even think of spending it.
"I got a little behind on my taxes, and I'm squaring that away now. Most of my bonus money has been going to paying my taxes. In 2011, I had a really good year. I fought five times [and was] bonused, double bonused. I spent the money like it was water, man. Then the tax guy came and said, 'Hey, Cowboy. You still owe us.' So I'm on track with that. This year is important to get that paid."
He laughs at the thought. He's going to fight as long as he can because right now, nothing else interests him.
But he admits he has concerns related to the hazards of his profession. A lifetime of getting punched and kicked in the head isn't good for the long-term.
"We're the first guys, so we really don't know what this is going to do to us way down the road," he said. "We're the generation of test dummies. I get out of bed now and I'm going, 'Arrgh! Arrgh! My back.' And that's now. How am I going to be at 50, 60? No idea, man. None. Probably going to be rough.
"Modern science hopefully has something for us, or at least I hope they do. But you know what? I mean, what a life I've got here. This is the life I always wanted to live man, so hey, I'm going to live life the way that makes me happy. Down the road? Yeah, I think about it a little. It may be tough, but I'm not going to worry too much about that. I tend to worry about now, now, and I'll worry about then, then."
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