OFTEN it can take a bit of in-depth knowledge about specific fighters to notice the finger of the matchmaker being placed on the scale.
The UFC rarely resorts to the kind of antics that Scott Coker is employing in Bellator—where Michael ‘Venom’ Page will often be matched up with an opponent who could well be fighting for a sandwich and a warm bed at the end of the night—but they do still pop in the odd showcase match to fluff up a marketable property.
When the UFC picked out the square-on and hittable Ricky Simon to welcome Urijah Faber back from retirement, or dug deep into the Amazonian regional scene to find Priscilla Cachoeira in order for Valentina Shevchenko to murder her, that was some showcase matchmaking.
The difference with this weekend’s match up between Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone is that everyone who follows the sport even casually and has a little knowledge is aware of what the UFC is trying to do. This isn’t abhorrent—like Shevchenko vs Cachoeira, or the match up between Michael ‘Venom’ Page and 3-1 Richard Kiely a few months back.
McGregor Cerrone
Holm Pennington
Oleinik Greene
Gadelha Grasso
Pettis Ferreira
Fili Yusuff
Modafferi Barber
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This is more akin to that Simon – Faber match up, where the returning star is given the highest ranked name who still offers him a favourable stylistic match up on paper. Donald Cerrone is not a dead duck in this match up, but he is one of the most active and least adaptable fighters in the UFC—all his habits are well known and understood, and a lot of them play right into Conor McGregor’s A game.
McGregor rocketed to prominence on his reliable ability to knock out world class fighters. That in itself is hard enough to do and, as Jeremy Stephens’ career can attest, the secret isn’t power. McGregor had a corking left hand—no doubt—but his method was the key. From the opening bell McGregor would apply an almost frantic pressure, forcing his opponent back towards the cage, and digging kicks at their body and head as he did so.
The counter left hand most often got the job done, but it wouldn’t have been half as effective without the pressure. Pressure makes well trained, well practised veterans forget themselves and make mistakes just to get a momentary relief from it. So many men lashed out and overreached at McGregor—and ate the counter left hand as a result—because he was on them from the get-go.
Meanwhile, Donald Cerrone has always been a slow starter and a disaster under pressure. There is an important clarification that needs to be made of course: pressure is not repeatedly running at your man. Plenty of guys have tried that and eaten knee after knee in the gut, until they turned foetal or stepped back far enough for Cerrone to get his kickboxing going.
But if you want to see Cerrone collapsing under well applied pressure, where the pressure fighter repeatedly corrects the striking distance and forces Cerrone to keep moving or be hit—you can check out his losses to Darren Till, Jorge Masvidal, Tony Ferguson, Nate Diaz, Rafael dos Anjos. Some of those were a slower pressure like Masvidal slowly wedging his way down the centre of Cerrone’s guard with his jab, and others were frantic—like Till, who quickly moved him to the fence, faked out the intercepting knee, and blasted Cerrone with left hands. Add in Cerrone’s difficulty with body shots, particularly body kicks, particularly from southpaws, and everything looks to be coming up McGregor.
With all that being said McGregor has some pretty consistent negative habits of his own. Most notably slowing down significantly from the second round onwards if he is made to exert himself. His power hangs around a bit, and he still looks to apply the pressure, but he isn’t nearly as quick. So much of McGregor’s first round magic relies on that hair-trigger reaction to change from offence, to evasion, to counter. The more McGregor is made to exert himself, the quicker he comes down off the balls of his feet—as against Diaz, Mayweather, Nurmagomedov—and if you want to see the impact fresh legs have on his counter punching check out his fight with Chad Mendes, where he came in with a busted ACL and was cracked in the face every time he tried his usual pull counters (though he actually outlasted Mendes in that fight.)
Cerrone might be a slow starter, but he is still tough as nails—he often gets hurt early in the first round and winds up finishing his opponent before the end of the round. If he can hang around and make McGregor work in that time—with grappling, striking, or even just by absorbing a beating—his chances improve drastically. A slower moving McGregor is a much more realistic target for Cerrone’s brilliant low kicks and combination work.
To improve his chances on the feet—barring somehow learning to circle the cage and avoid the fence in a way he hasn’t shown through fifty fights—Cerrone should look to make a muddy track for McGregor. Every time McGregor punches, McGregor should be trying to crash into a clinch, or catch a collar tie and get off a few hockey punches or an elbow. Lashing out wildly at McGregor isn’t a great idea, so letting him lead an trying to get in on him that way might well be in Cerrone’s interest. Additionally, finding a way to return on McGregor’s left front kick and left high kick with kicks of his own would make life a lot less difficult for Cerrone and reduce the threat of McGregor’s body work.
Whether this match up succeeds in reigniting the McGregor brand for something bigger in a few months time, or Cerrone pulls the upset, both men have established sterling reputations as action fighters, and as finishers. For all the circus and cynicism around it, even the most embittered fight fan gets a treat when either of these men are actually in the cage.
