'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
This weekend sees the UFC present Fight Night 158 live from Vancouver, British Columbia on ESPN+ and in the main event, viewers will be salivating as fan favorites Donald Cerrone and Justin Gaethje clash. ‘Cowboy’ and ‘The Highlight’ are two of the most exciting fighters on the entire UFC roster, and whenever either man steps inside the Octagon, fireworks seem guaranteed.
Of course though, in any fight, there has to be a winner and there has to be a loser. And in this fight? Sorry Cerrone fans, my money is on Gaethje. ‘Cowboy’ is still a great fighter and should see plenty of success in the future, but for me, this won’t be his night.
Here are 3 reasons why Justin Gaethje will defeat Donald Cerrone this weekend.
#1 Pressure, pressure, pressure
Donald Cerrone is obviously a great fighter, and while he hasn’t held UFC gold since arriving in the promotion in 2011, the fact that he’s won a ridiculous 23 fights, finishing 16 of them, should speak for itself. But even the greatest fighters have weaknesses, and for Cerrone, one of them is his distinct lack of ability to handle pressure.
I’m not talking about pressure as in the pressure of the moment; Cerrone never falters mentally even in the toughest fights. I’m talking about his issues with opponents who simply show no fear of his offense and walk him down, forcing him backwards and corralling him towards the Octagon fence. Cerrone has 9 UFC losses to go along with those wins and in the majority of them, he was faced with opponents who were able to pour on the pressure from the word go.
Gaethje is one of those kinds of opponents, which makes Saturday’s fight very worrying for ‘Cowboy’. There’s little nuance to Gaethje’s game – he simply looks to walk his opponent down and destroy them with his striking power, as he showed when he took out Edson Barboza in the first round of their fight in March.
All Gaethje needs to study for a blueprint to win this fight is the way that Darren Till dismantled Cerrone in 2017, giving him no room to breathe or put together any offense of his own before he found himself trapped on the fence, eating punches en route to a TKO. Is that a gameplan Gaethje can pull off? For sure, and I think he’ll do it.
#2 The issue of durability
When you’re talking about fighters like Donald Cerrone and Justin Gaethje – fighters who are quite willing to walk through hell in order to take out the man across the Octagon from them – the question of toughness shouldn’t really come into things. The two Lightweights are a pair of the toughest men to ever set foot inside the UFC. Durability, however, is another thing entirely.
Gaethje has practically been involved in nothing but wars throughout his career, dating back to his days in the World Series of Fighting promotion. ‘The Highlight’ won their Lightweight title but found himself in major brawls with the likes of Luis Palomino and Melvin Guillard along the way. The old joke, in fact, suggested that Gaethje needed to get to the UFC quickly before his chin finally gave out on him.
Well, since arriving in the UFC in 2017, Gaethje has been stopped by strikes twice – but it took Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier a ludicrous amount of violence to put him away, and even then ‘The Highlight’ was never truly knocked unconscious. It seems that despite his history, he’s still unbelievably durable.
Cerrone on the other hand? While durability was a huge strength of his a few years back – witness the beating he took from Nate Diaz, for instance, or the shots he absorbed against Melvin Guillard. He’s slowly become more vulnerable over the years to the point where he suffered nasty TKOs against Jorge Masvidal and Darren Till as part of a three-fight slide in 2017.
Sure, ‘Cowboy’ is still tough as nails, but against a fighter equally as tough in Gaethje, the odds are that it’ll be Cerrone’s chin which cracks first – after all, he’s been in just as many wars and is also 6 years older. And when you add in that Gaethje hits with insane power, this fight seems pretty worrying for ‘Cowboy’.
#3 Strength of schedule?
Justin Gaethje might’ve gained a reputation for being involved in some crazy wars, but while that’s true, he’s also had a lot of recovery time, too. Since joining the UFC in the summer of 2017, ‘The Highlight’ has fought on 5 occasions, with the quickest turnaround between fights being just over 4 months. And he hasn’t actually had a war in a while – his last two fights have been early knockout victories that didn’t see him take too much damage.
The same can’t be said for Cerrone. There’s a reason why he’s managed to put on a ridiculous 32 fights in his 8-year UFC tenure – an average of 4 per year – and that’s because when he’s healthy, his schedule is absolutely insane. We’re only in September and ‘Cowboy’ has already fought three times, with the Gaethje fight about to be his 4th.
And those fights weren’t exactly cakewalks, either. Sure, he took out Alexander Hernandez quite quickly, but while he defeated Al Iaquinta, he still took a lot of shots across 5 rounds, and his most recent fight against Tony Ferguson was one of the bloodiest and most downright violent in recent memory.
At some stage that kind of schedule has to catch up with Cerrone – and in fact, it did in the past, when he hit a three-fight skid in 2017. Given we’re only just over 3 months removed from that crazy brawl with Ferguson – a brawl that saw Cerrone stopped when his right eye swelled completely shut – it’s hard to believe that ‘Cowboy’ has fully recovered. And that means that Gaethje will be far fresher, and should have the advantage coming into this weekend’s fight.
