5 Talking Points from UFC Fight Night 89

#3 Donald Cerrone at Welterweight

Donald Cerrone had the perfect gameplan against Partick Cote

If Conor McGregor’s loss to Nate Diaz exemplified anything, it was that jumping up weight classes could well end up as a risk that outweighs the rewards for the unsuspecting, or even for the over confident.

And despite the laid back approach that Cowboy reflected in the lead up to the fight, his performance against veteran Patrick Cote betrayed no signs of complacency. Rather, his approach of employing a wrestling heavy game in the first round took the sting out of Cote’s offence and laid him vulnerable to be picked off in the remaining two.

For a fighter famous for his legendary chin, it highlighted the effectiveness and variety of Cerrone’s offence that Cote was often made to look clueless and caught in limbo for the majority of the fight; neither convincing in defence nor displaying conviction in offence.

He seemed neither like a fighter who could stick his chin out and charge at his opponent, trusting it implicitly, nor like one who was bothered with shoring up his defence in hope of catching his opponent on the counter, en route to getting finished in the third round.

Patrick Cote isn’t a mediocre fighter by any stretch of imagination, but he was nonetheless made to look like one.On the other hand in keeping with his reputation, perhaps unsurprisingly, Donald Cerrone was prepared to make a quick turn around and fight at UFC 200 again.