Cowboy: I’ve never, ever seen Alvarez fight
Donald Cerrone: “Never seen Eddie Alvarez fight, ever. Never, never, never. I’ve seen a picture of him before. That’s it. I don’t watch fights. People don’t understand.”
Long gone are days when Pride would let a fighter know who the opponent was just two weeks before hand, or less. Now camps send long weeks and months game planning for a specific fighter and watching tape until the opponent’s style is intimately familiar.
This is all the more true for a co-main event fight, on PPV. Unless you are Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, who fights Eddie Alvarez at UFC 178 on Saturday. In a recent interview, Cerrone said he has never even seen Alvarez fight.
“Anybody, doesn’t matter to me,” said Cerrone as transcribed by David St. Martin for MMAFighting. “They’re all the same. For the fans, sure. He’s hyped up. Get everyone tuned in, excited, but for me, a fight’s a fight. I don’t give a s—.”
“Everyone was saying us WEC guys were going to get smashed. I never really gave him much thought. He’s coming from Bellator, s—, wish him luck. Too bad he’s got to go in with me. It’s a tough fight, first fight. ‘Welcome to the UFC. Here’s Cowboy.’
“It’s going to be a scrap. Dude throws down. That’s all I know about him. Haven’t really seen him fight, ever. That’s what people tell me. S—, I’m ready. Never seen Eddie fight, ever. Never, never, never. I’ve seen a picture of him before. That’s it. I don’t watch fights. People don’t understand. They’re like, ‘You don’t know anything about your opponent?’ ‘No, I know nothing about him.'”
Top camps now typically plot a course for a title shot that sometimes involves long waits, sometimes disastrously. You might expect Cerrone to wait for the winner of division champion Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez on Dec. 6 at UFC 181. After all, he already had three fights this year, winning them all.
But “Cowboy” just wants to fight, and get paid. He hopes for six fights in 2014.
“It’s what’s going to happen,” said Cerrone. “My teammates, my coaches, my management, they all think we should wait and take the title fight. But, you already know, people who know me, I’m gonna say, ‘Let’s roll. Let’s keep it going.’
“They don’t fight until December, right? They won’t be ready to fight probably until February again. That’s a long wait for me. I’ll just take fights. I don’t care about my position in the top 10, top five or if I’m No. 1. I’ll fight anybody. I just want to fight. Make money. I won’t sit and wait.”
