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UFC 246 is a little over a week away and the first PPV of the decade will see the return of Conor McGregor after 15 months as he tries to get back in the W column against Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone.
Many have underestimated Cerrone's chance in the fight, with UFC President Dana White perplexed as to the "level of disrespect" shown to "Cowboy". The consensus seems to be that the longer the fight goes, the more it favors Cerrone, as the Irishman McGregor is known to finish his fights in the earlier stages.
Georges St. Pierre, who has been retired for a while now, gave his thoughts on the fight alongside Firas Zahabi.
“If it’s a quick fight it’s going to be McGregor,” Georges St-Pierre told the TriStar Gym’s YouTube channel. “If it’s a long fight it’s going to be Cerrone.”
The multi-time UFC Champion said that Cerrone's ground game is very underrated, having experienced it during training first-hand. He said that people don't know about it because he doesn't use it as much (H/T BJPenn.com):
"[It] depends if Cerrone comes and tries to grapple because he has a very good ground game, his ground game is very underrated. I’ve trained with him before, he has good takedown. He is very explosive to shoot the takedown,” he explained. “People don’t know that because he doesn’t use it much. He used it against Patrick Cote. If he does that, to weather the first couple minutes of the storm and McGregor’s powerful left hand, I think he can get it.”
GSP emphasized the importance of Cerrone wrestling being the key to pull off the upset against McGregor:
“I think if he wrestles in round one he has a good chance to win. But, if he tries to play a boxing and karate game with McGregor, McGregor will knock him out… It’s hard. The odds are more towards McGregor. Cerrone can pull this off too. It’s at 170, [it’s] Cerrone [advantage] I think. McGregor looks big.
While admitting that he doesn't know enough about the Irishman, he lauded him for being like a "sniper". He also said that Cerrone is known to be a slow starter, which may be detrimental to him:
"I don’t know enough about McGregor. But, from what I’ve seen is he is like a sniper,” Georges St-Pierre added. “When you fight a sniper, you need to move, you need change levels, you need change angles, change [the] distance and I don’t know if Cerrone will do that. He is known to be a slow starter as usual, so if he doesn’t start right away hard with the speed he is going to get caught.”
It'll be interesting to see how the fight plays out. St-Pierre added valid points, giving both fighters praise for their qualities. While a fight against McGregor isn't on the cards anytime soon, one would imagine that he'll be keeping a close eye on what happens at the T-Mobile Arena on January 18th.
