Fighters risk it all when they step inside the ring or cage to compete. You have to be prepared in every facet to emerge victorious. But there's an old saying about the fight business, 'It's ten percent physical and the remaining 90 percent is mental'.
The most significant moment of Donald Cerrone's MMA career was in the main event at UFC 246 in January 2020 against the sport's biggest star Conor McGregor in a welterweight bout. The Irishman was stepping back into the Octagon for the first time since being submitted by then-lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 229.
One of the running narratives heading into UFC 246 was that Cerrone had the right skillset to beat McGregor and send his career into a deeper tailspin. Another prevailing had been can Cerrone come through when the lights shine the brightest. He'd competed for world titles in the past but fell short. UFC 246 was supposed to be the night that Cerrone overcame the perceived mental hurdles and secure the signature win of his legendary career.
Cerrone's fate was the same at UFC 246, as McGregor dusted Cerrone in just 40 seconds.
"When I'm down in my dumps, thinking about the bad times, those the nights standing about to walk into a cage and I'm not there mentally, those are the downtime," Cerrone admits to DAZN News. "The ill-prepared moments. The days of working construction? I'll go work construction tomorrow, make just enough money to get my life back on track. I'll never be hungry. I'll never be left in the rain. I'm a worker. I'm a hard worker. I'll figure out a way. You can take all my money away today, and I'll fucking figure out a way to make money tomorrow.
"But the times I look back, the mental game, I can't get those back. I can't relive those nights that I stood there and didn't have the motivation, the willpower that I wanted. Those are my downtimes. Those are the shitty moments. That's the time when I'm at my worst I think about it, man. You want to talk about the biggest lights, the biggest moment I have, Conor McGregor. Are you f—ing kidding me? I choked. That's the lowest of the low."
In the buildup to UFC 246, it appeared from at least on the surface that Cerrone had overcome those mental blocks. He was jovial in interviews and looked to have a carefree attitude around McGregor at the pre-fight press conference and the weigh-in. Cerrone finally admits that he kept what he was feeling all on the inside and how he looked to be on the outside was all a facade. The former UFC and WEC lightweight title challenger says he'd done it before and had been successful. It didn't happen at UFC 246.
"Got to fake it until you make it sometimes," Cerrone said. "Sometimes, when you fake it long enough, you find it. So that's the trick. I didn't find it though."
The rest of 2020 didn't go the way Cerrone anticipated. He lost a narrow unanimous decision to Anthony Pettis at UFC 249. He then went to a majority draw with Niko Price in September that got switched to a no-contest after Price tested positive for marijuana. Typically, Cerrone likes to fight three to four times in a calendar year. Saturday's UFC Fight Night co-main event against late-replacement Alex Morono will be the first time Cerrone dons the four-ounce gloves in 2021. Why did Cerrone take about eight months in between fights?
He attempted to seek some help to help him get straightened out between the ears. Cerrone feels the things he tried were unsuccessful.
"I've tried to work with a sports psychologist or psychiatrist," Cerrone said. Talk to your Uncle, your crazy Aunt, talk to your buddies, talk to whoever. I don't think actively you can make the decision until internally you're ready to make those decisions. So how you reach that, I have no idea. But there comes a time when you're like f—ing enough's enough, and you internally release it and make the active decisions to do that. But when I was talking with the with the psychologist, I might as well just been setting money on fire. That's what I was doing, just paying the guy to talk to me.
"I'd rather be on my phone looking at f—ing big booty b—es on Instagram, you know what I mean? It's harder when you don't want it. It's hard to get the help you need. So trying to stop someone addicted to heroin, they don't want to stop. They're not going to stop until they're ready to make the stop—the same thing with me. I don't think mentally, I can find the part that I want to be until mentally I'm ready to make that. I don't know what the trick was or when it's going to happen, or if it's happening. It's tough. It's crazy your mind is so wild."
UFC president Dana White said after the Price fight that maybe it was time for a conversation with Cerrone about retirement. Cerrone said he was "hurt" by those comments from his boss.
What are Cerrone's goals at this stage of the game? The "Cowboy" feels if he can mentally be in the right place, then one more run at the lightweight championship is in the cards.
"If I go on one hell of terror at 155 and I go and get that belt, I will bow out," Cerrone exclaims. "That'd be it. Jump off on top and call it a motherf—ing day for sure. So that's the plan. This is my last run. We're going to go give it hell. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, at least I gave everything I had to make it work."