Donald Cerrone makes honest Conor McGregor fight admission after devastating UFC 246 loss
Donald Cerrone locked horns with former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor in January.
Donald Cerrone admits he didn't want to be in the cage with Conor McGregor the night of their welterweight showdown. Fan favourite Cerrone welcomed the former two-division champion back to the Octagon in January in the main event of UFC 246 in Las Vegas.
The contest went dreadfully for the future Hall-of-Famer, with McGregor decimating him in 40 seconds to pick up his first victory in over three years.
Cerrone failed to land a single meaningful shot before he was put away; his closet strike being the head kick he attempted before McGregor him with one of his own.
Throughout his mixed martial arts career, Cerrone has shown a tendency to not perform in the big fights.
That tendency reared its head before his clash with McGregor, so much so he didn't even want to compete in the biggest fight of his career.
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Biggest fight, all the attention, my time to shine, I didn’t want to be there
“Donald showed up, 'Cowboy' wasn’t there," Cerrone told ESPN. "The wrong guy showed up, couldn’t get going, couldn’t get excited, couldn’t get fired up, didn’t want to be there.
"Biggest fight, all the attention, my time to shine, I didn’t want to be there.
"(Expletive) it was crazy man. I don’t know why, I don’t how, I don’t know how to change that, but it sucks man.”
Cerrone's reluctance about facing 'The Notorious' kicked in well before he made his walk to the Octagon that fateful night at the T-Mobile Arena.
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He said: "Two days before the fight I was f***ing like, it was just hard.
"When I showed up there that morning, it was like ‘Man, f**k’ I just wasn’t feeling it.”
Cerrone, 37, doesn't know why he continues to freeze on the big stage and has hinted he may never know the answer to the often-asked question.
“Sometimes I show up there and I’m f***ing ready, I’m fired up and I’m ready to go, sometimes I get there and I’m like ‘I don’t even want to be here,'" he said.
"So, don’t know, no idea, wish I had the answer."
Defeat to McGregor was Cerrone's third loss in a row, all three of which have come via TKO.
'Cowboy' will look to stop the rot a week on Saturday at UFC 249, in Jacksonville, Florida, where he'll face former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis.
McGregor, 31, has yet to book his second fight of 2020 but is eager to compete two more times this year.