'Cowboy' Cerrone says he knows just what Ronda Rousey was going through after loss

PITTSBURGH – Ronda Rousey caused a bit of a stir this past week when she let the world in on just what was going through her head after the first loss of her career.

Rousey (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) sent some shockwaves through the MMA world when she told Ellen DeGeneres that the immediate aftermath of her upset knockout loss to Holly Holm (10-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) at UFC 193 this past November included a thought of suicide – however brief that thought might have been.

Some took her comment and interpreted it as a cry for help; others took it for what it likely was – just an admission of how bummed out she was that she had the world at her fingertips, and it all had come crashing down in about six minutes when she lost her UFC women’s bantamweight title after being as much as a 20-1 favorite in the lead-up to the fight.

Suffice it to say, Rousey took some time to stay out of the spotlight, but in 2016 she’s been back at the forefront, even though we’re not sure just when she’ll get back in the cage again. In January, she became just the third women’s athlete to host “Saturday Night Live,” and the first MMA fighter. And on newsstands right now, she’s on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Her appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” was in part to promote that bit of her continued rise to mainstream superstardom.

But when she admitted just how down she was after the shocking upset loss to Holm, which many consider the biggest upset in MMA history, one fighter knew how she felt: Donald Cerrone.

On Sunday, Cerrone (28-7 MMA, 15-4 UFC) headlines UFC Fight Night 83 against another “Cowboy,” Alex Oliveira (14-2-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC), at CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh. After early prelims on UFC Fight Pass, the rest of the card airs on FOX Sports 1, including Cerrone’s latest main event.

Two months ago, Cerrone was on an eight-fight winning streak and finally had a shot at the UFC’s lightweight title. But champion Rafael dos Anjos tore through him quickly in the UFC on FOX 17 main event in Orlando, Fla. “Cowboy” never got started, and the loss was a devastating one.

Afterward, when asked how quickly he’d want to get back in the cage to erase that memory, Cerrone told MMAjunkie he wasn’t even sure if the UFC would want him to come back – that’s how bad he believed his performance was.

And because of that, he said he gets what Rousey was talking about with DeGeneres.

“Look at Ronda. The emotional part – this is the highest highs, and the absolute lowest lows (in the sport),” Cerrone told MMAjunkie. “The fans and everyone is cool (when you lose). But more, it’s like my friends and my family. They’re here, and if you were to ask my grandma who’s gonna win this fight, she’d (say), ‘Awwww, “Cowboy’s” gonna win this,’ ya know? And so you feel internally like you let a lot of people down.”

“So I feel where Ronda’s coming from. She was at the top of the game and went out there and lost, and she had to lock herself in a dark room for a while and just figure it out.”

But it doesn’t have to be all negative, Cerrone said. Rousey used a pretty major platform in DeGeneres to reveal – through tears on the show – what it was like when she got back to the locker room at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.

Cerrone thinks if her admission can help other people know there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, then that’s a good thing.

“It’s cool the way she came out and let people know, and there’s probably a lot of kids that feel that exact feeling, and knowing that the sun comes up every day and life moves on …,” Cerrone said.

When he lost to dos Anjos, he said he took his time to be down. But as is witnessed by his quick turnaround to fight in tonight’s UFC Fight Night 83 main event, he moved past the loss and is ready to start fresh.

“That next morning (was when I was over it),” Cerrone said. “That night (after the fight) sucked. I definitely didn’t talk to anybody – just went back to the RV and pouted. But hey, the sun came up and it was like, ‘Let’s move forward. Let’s get this going.’ And here I am today: Pittsburgh.”

For more on UFC Fight Night 83, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.