Conor vs. Cowboy? Why Donald Cerrone is the perfect next opponent for McGregor

Conor McGregor’s transcendent appeal has long been built on a certain foundation: He might win, he might lose, but he always takes the biggest challenge he can find.

Jose Aldo held the featherweight title for six years? Thirteen-second McGregor knockout.

Nate Diaz has offered to step in on two weeks’ notice and fight the Irishman, so long as the bout is at welterweight? Challenge accepted. And McGregor lost. Then “The Notorious” avenged the loss just months later.

No one has ever held simultaneous weight-class titles in UFC history? McGregor went out and knocked out Eddie Alvarez to take the lightweight championship while still holding the featherweight belt.

Box Floyd Mayweather? The idea sounded preposterous, then 4.3 million homes paid $100 a pop to watch McGregor last into the 10th round with one of the greatest fighters of all-time before losing.

Fight a prime Khabib Nurmagomedov after nearly two years away from MMA? Well, that one didn’t go so well. But McGregor gave it a shot.

You’ll note, three of the last four examples cited here involved McGregor losing a fight. All of them were giant events. After the UFC 229 loss to Nurmagomedov, those casual fans who make the difference between a healthy draw and one who reaches Mayweather’s stratosphere started to note that McGregor has been losing a lot recently.

This is going to make McGregor’s next fight booking a bit of a tricky proposition. A rusty McGregor needs to take a step back from the rarified level of competition he’s fought recently and find a platform that enables him to shine and put on the sort of exciting show that marked his breathtaking ascent through the sport. But the matchup also needs to include a fan favorite who can hold his own on the B-side of the pay-per-view bill. There aren’t many candidates who fit this bill.

Then in rode a Cowboy.

Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone is one of the most popular fighters in the history of mixed martial arts. The Mountain West maverick’s personality could scarcely be more different than the dapper McGregor, but they share a common willingness to scrap against the toughest competitors who cross their paths.

Cerrone might win and he might lose. He’s lost eight times in the UFC, in fact. But he rarely says no to a fight — three years ago this month, he fought and won twice in two weeks — and his bouts tend to be all action.

“Cowboy” wasn’t in the main event of Saturday night’s UFC Brooklyn card, but he was in the card’s highest-profile spot. The main card at Barclays Center was on ESPN+, but Cerrone’s featured prelim bout with Alexander Hernandez was on linear ESPN cable. The fight drew a 1.4 overnight rating, the highest television rating for a UFC prelim broadcast since 2013.

And the fans who tuned in saw Cerrone at his finest. Cerrone had been disrespected in the run-up to the fight by the brash Hernandez, who insinuated his opponent was past his prime. But Cerrone held is tongue until fight time and gave his response with his fists and feet. He absolutely picked Hernandez apart, peppering him with kicks high and low and repeatedly drilling him with knees whenever Hernandez tried to close the distance.

A classic Cerrone head kick led to the climactic flurry, and Cerrone finished the job at 3:43 mark of the second round. That added to a pair of Cerrone UFC records: victories (22) and finishes (16).

The 35-year-old Cerrone has never been a world champion (he lost to then-lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos in 2015 in his only UFC title shot), but at this stage of the game, he’s ready for the pot of gold that comes with a McGregor bout.

“I want top five now,” Cerrone said. “I’ll take Conor if he agrees to it. I’m coming for the belt. I’m on a roll. Here I come.”

McGregor, for his part, doesn’t often dish out compliments, over Twitter or otherwise, when others in his division compete. But he, too, seems to sense that the “Cowboy” fight might be the one that makes sense, based on a Tweet sent out moments after Cerrone mentioned McGregor on television:

There are still obstacles in the way of a potential McGregor-Cerrone fight. Chief among them is the fact the Nevada Athletic Commission’s feet are still dragging on their investigation into the postfight melee after McGregor’s loss to Nurmagomedov in Las Vegas in October, which is now into its fourth month. But that can’t go on forever, and it’s hard to imagine the commission will come down too hard on its golden goose.

UFC president Dana White, for his part, could barely keep his poker face about the fight as he discussed the possibility.

“Anything is possible,” White said at the UFC Brooklyn post-fight news conference. “If those guys want that and the fans want to see it, that’s what I do. … Don’t run out there and say that’s the fight I’m making,” White said. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but I like the fact that two of these guys that are complete dogs and fight anybody — willing to fight anybody — want to fight each other. That’s fun.”

Maybe a little fun is just what the doctor ordered at this stage of the game. After McGregor’s postfight brawls, the legal issues, the boxing match and the chase for history, maybe what’s needed is as simple as letting two fighters known for exciting scraps get in the cage together. Maybe the UFC just found its next huge fight.

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