The Stagnant Career of Donald Cerrone

In his 17 fight career, Donald Cerrone has only lost three times, with one no contest. During this time, he has racked up a total of six Fight of the Nights between his time in the WEC and UFC. Two of these honors have come during his three most recent fights, all of which ended in victories for "The Cowboy". So, with all of these accolades, why does it seem like Donald Cerrone’s career isn’t going anywhere?

It all starts with Cerrone’s performances inside of the octagon. At first glance, one may look at The Cowboy’s 14-3 record with three straight victories and see a fighter at or close to the top of his division. But upon closer inspection, we see someone with the definition of a "padded record". In fact, almost every time Cerrone has been handed a chance to truly further his career as a mixed martial artist, he has disappointed. In his first fight for a major promotion at WEC 30, The Cowboy had a submission victory overturned because he tested positive for an illegal substance (hydrochlorothiazide, a diuretic). He turned things to around to earn a shot at Jamie Varner’s title at WEC 38, only to blow his chance by delivering an illegal knee in the fifth round to lose the fight by a technical split decision. Less than one year later, Cerrone found himself once again fighting for a title, but this time lost out on the Interim WEC Lightweight Championship at the hands of Ben Henderson. He was granted a rematch at WEC 48, where he once again lost to Henderson, this time by a guillotine choke in the first round.

Despite these setbacks, Cerrone has seen success during his career, but against who? While many fans may know of Danny Castillo now, he was essentially a nobody when Cerrone defeated him back at WEC 34. The same goes for Anthony Njokuani, who lost to The Cowboy back in early 2007. In fact, besides these two, none of the fighters that Cerrone has defeated in his entire career still fight under the Zuffa banner. I will say that his victories against Rob McCullough, Jamie Varner and Paul Kelly (given the short notice and big stage) were of significance, but three out of 18 fights is not an impressive figure. While some fighters make a habit of fighting the "Who’s who" of their division, Cerrone for the most part has only fought the "Who?"

Donald Cerrone’s troubles don’t stop inside of the octagon. Actually, it may be his outside of the ring antics that have cost him even more throughout his career. Often the cause of the problems start at Cowboy’s mouth, where he always seems to be producing some unwanted soundbite. The most famous of these occurred during his rivalry with Jamie Varner, where Cerrone has called Varner a homophobic slur as well as hoped that he suffers the "first death in MMA". More recently, Cerrone has found himself in the middle of a war of words with UFC fighter Cole Miller after calling him out on multiple occasions. Even in the lead up to this weekend’s UFC 131, Cerrone has made headlines by calling Mac Danzig (whom he was supposed to fight) a "p***y".

While for the most part his words are relatively harmless, Cerrone’s attitude has lead to escalated confrontations as well. At UFC 100, Cerrone and fellow teammate Leonard Garcia allegedly confronted Jamie Varner in the locker room. Upset about Varner delaying their rematch (due to an injury), Cerrone supposedly said some things to Varner that aren’t fit to be printed, which nearly lead to blows before the two could be separated. As is a common theme throughout Donald Cerrone’s career, he did not learn from past mistakes and was involved in another locker room scuffle last year. Weeks before his fight at WEC 53, Cerrone allegedly got into a fist fight with Heavyweight Marcus Sursa in the locker room of a small fight in New Mexico. Both of these altercations not only threatened Cerrone’s immediate future in terms of getting injured before his next fight, but could have cost him his career in the WEC/UFC.

While Donald Cerrone certainly isn’t the first "bad boy" in the world of combat sports, most of the others have better proven their worth. Cowboy is a handful, and to date he hasn’t really shown why he has earned the right to be. Sure, he has won multiple Fight of the Night honors, but usually at the expense of much less experienced or prestigious opponents. And that’s fine as there’s nothing wrong with entertaining albeit insignificant fights, as long as people recognize it and do not try to portray Cerrone as a top Lightweight. Until he fights and defeats someone of importance, Donald Cerrone is nothing more than a headcase who is trying to climb out of the middle of his division.