Even by his own unique standards, Donald Cerrone has had a weird few weeks.
Because of that fact, it left a strange taste in the mouth to see Cerrone score a third-round knockout over Matt Brown in the co-main event of Saturday’s UFC 206 and then immediately try to sign himself up for another fight as soon as possible.
Perhaps it was a sign things were getting back to normal for one of the Octagon’s most dependable performers.
But in this case, was that necessarily a good thing?
“I love this s--t…,” Cerrone said multiple times while on the mic with UFC color commentator Joe Rogan after the fight. “I knew [Brown] was going to come hard. I knew he was gunning for the finish. I wonder about [the UFC event in] Denver, Colorado in a few weeks? What about that one?”
Himself a Denver native who has made a career of fighting anyone, anytime, any place, the popular Cowboy didn’t have to explain what he meant by that last part.
We all knew what he wanted.
What Cerrone didn't talk about in the cage with Rogan were his recent efforts to join up with a group of MMA fighters battling for an increased piece of the sport's ample financial pie. Now, it's unclear if his desire to return to the business of being one of the UFC's busiest fighters means his fledgling political days are already behind him.
Cerrone has long been the fight company's premier wild man. Until recently, his seat-of-the-pants lifestyle has required no future planning aside from where and when his next payday will come. When his health permits, he has reliably fought four or five times each year since coming to the big leagues from the WEC in 2011.
Saturday’s win, for example, boosted him to 4-0 during 2016. After dropping a lightweight title fight to Rafael dos Anjos in December 2015, Cerrone moved up to welterweight and has put together a run that should make him a chic selection on many Fighter of the Year ballots.
Against Brown, he was once again at his very best. He looked loose and comfortable inside the cage, peppering his stiffer opponent with a snapping jab and stunning him with a series of head kicks until landing the one that turned out the lights just 34 seconds into the final round.
That Cerrone also didn’t receive his fourth consecutive Performance of the Night bonus from the UFC spoke to the action-packed nature of this event, where all five main card fights delivered quality action:
You know it's a wild night of fights when Cerrone gets a kick to the head KO and doesn't get a performance bonus.
— Brian Oswald (@briancoswald) December 11, 2016
But did it also hint at an increasingly strained relationship with UFC President Dana White over Cerrone's recent involvement with the Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association?
That we may never know.
If nothing else, a series of recent events had added an additional layer of chaos around Cerrone leading up to this matchup. It also left his longstanding chummy rapport with the UFC on unprecedentedly thin ice.
Cerrone was briefly linked to a potential fight against former welterweight champion Robbie Lawler at UFC 205 in November, per MMA Junkie's Steven Marrocco. After that fight imploded, he was scheduled to take on Kelvin Gastelum at the same event until that matchup fell apart at the last moment when Gastelum was unable to make weight.
Cerrone was quickly rebooked against the notoriously tough and durable Brown at the much lower-profile UFC 206 event in Toronto, but in the interim, a couple of interesting things happened.
First, Cerrone suffered a hunting accident that left some fairly grisly facial lacerations around one eye. He posted the damage in an ugly and cryptic video his Instagram account (NSFW language) on November 21 and later admitted he purposefully left the details scarce to mess with the public and media.
Either just for laughs or for publicity's sake—you can never tell with this guy—he kept everyone guessing about the real cause and the severity of the injury until he showed up in Toronto for the UFC 206 fight week.
Second, on November 30 Cerrone appeared at a press event with a handful of other fighters announcing the formation of the MMAAA as a potential step toward collective bargaining between fighters and the UFC.
Cerrone had become increasingly outspoken recently in his belief that fighters, who are employed as independent contractors, need better benefits from the UFC, including a retirement plan, a pension and better health care.
Still, he has always been a willing and able company man. So seeing him involved with a potential fighters’ union was a surprise. It lent the clumsily named MMAAA a bit of instant credibility.
White responded with his typical flare, belittling Cerrone's contributions to the sport and airing some personal gossip in a very public setting.
During an appearance on the UFC-owned Unfiltered podcast (Warning: NSFW), White said he felt “a little shocked” to see Cerrone involved in the MMAAA. He downplayed the fighter's standing in the UFC and claimed he had personally paid his legal fees after an alleged altercation with another man.
“A couple years ago, he was on his boat, gets into a beef with a guy on another boat,” White said, via MMA Junkie's Brent Brockhouse. “He’s in trouble. Who does he call? He calls me. What do I do? I go out and find him the best criminal defense lawyer and I spent over $100,000 of my own money. When I see Cowboy standing up there, it’s like, ‘Alright. Really? Ok.'”
At the MMAAA’s debut press conference, Cerrone let fighters like Tim Kennedy (who also fought at UFC 206, losing to Gastelum by third-round TKO) do most of the talking. In the wake of White’s outburst, he moved quickly to walk back his commitment to the newly-formed group.
Cerrone met with the UFC president prior to his bout against Brown and afterward said his relationship with White was back “on the up and up,” via MMA Junkie's Steven Marrocco (Warning: NSFW).
He also sounded like the meeting had left him appropriately chastised.
“It reminds me of when you get in trouble with your dad, and they don’t ground you, they just tell you how disappointed they are in you, which is worse,” Cerrone said. “So that’s kind of what he did to me ... I guess I should have let him know what I was getting involved in.”
Before, during and after his fight at UFC 206, Cerrone was mum on any future involvement with the MMAAA. He said White was “1,000 percent receptive” to his personal needs, but it remains very much unclear if he’ll continue to speak out on behalf of other athletes.
It’s also impossible to know if Cerrone being left off the UFC 206 bonus list can be seen as the organization sending him a message. He had received a Performance of the Night Award in all three of his previous wins during 2016 and 13 times total during 23 UFC fights.
In terms of collecting monetary rewards for his in-cage work, he had been one of the UFC’s most prolific.
UFC 206, however, will no doubt go down as one of the best events of the year, so competition for its $50,000 post-fight awards was hot and heavy.
Afterward, the UFC recognized Dooho Choi and Cub Swanson for their fight-of-the-year caliber featherweight slugfest as well as main event fighter Max Holloway and undercard KO artist Lando Vannata for their impressive handiwork.
For the first time all year, Cerrone was left without a publicly disclosed bonus.
Maybe that was to be expected. His fight against Brown was entertaining, but lacked the top-to-bottom fireworks of Choi vs. Swanson, and the finish wasn’t quite as eye-popping as Vannata’s spin-kick KO of John Makdessi.
Add in the fact that Holloway won the interim featherweight title with a third-round stoppage of Anthony Pettis and perhaps there just wasn’t enough room for everybody who deserved a little extra padding in the paycheck.
On the other hand, fighters have recently said, per Fox Sports' Damon Martin, that the UFC can and will wield those post-fight bonuses as a political cudgel, and Cerrone certainly looked as good as ever while dismantling Brown.
Brown had done his best to stoke a war of words during the lead-up to their fight, but the typically fiery Cerrone looked calm and collected in the cage.
He effortlessly glided around Brown’s more straightforward attack, scoring with low kicks and combinations throughout. The overall picture was of a technician at the top of his craft methodically dismantling a brawler.
Brown had his moments. He put Cerrone in trouble with a triangle choke and arm bar attempt late in the first round. He also stumbled Cerrone with a punch in the second and consistently landed his own thudding power shots when the more skilled fighter left him openings
But this night clearly belonged to Cowboy.
The victory should leave him still climbing the 170-pound ranks, possibly as a legitimate contender for champion Tyron Woodley.
At the post-fight press conference, Cerrone mentioned a possible future fight against the surging Demian Maia as one that made the most sense to him. He also got called out by Jorge Masvidal and said he had no qualms accepting that matchup, too.
The fact is that Cerrone will fight almost anyone if it gets him back in the cage and in line for another payday sooner rather than later.
What we don’t know is whether he will continue to publicly campaign for the rights of fighters or whether his backstage meeting with White left him satisfied enough with his personal take to drop the subject altogether.
It would be a shame if he did, but in a career as wild and winding as Cerrone’s, there’s simply no telling what the next step might be.
