‘Cowboy’ Cerrone: Conor McGregor would have to go for a ‘low blow’ with trash talk to get under my skin 

Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone | Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone has never had much need for trash talk.

As ferocious as he may be whenever he’s competing, the fighter with the most fights and finishes in UFC history just doesn’t see the need to degrade his competition for the sake of promotion. He always prefers to let his fists do the talking for him.

Of course, Cerrone has been drawn into some fiery exchanges in the past, perhaps most notably his 2011 showdown with Nate Diaz that saw the Stockton, Calif. bad boy knock the cowboy hat off his head during a particularly feisty face off. For the most part, however, Cerrone has stayed even tempered even the face of the most incessant heckling.

At UFC 246, Cerrone will take on arguably the greatest trash talker of this generation when he meets Conor McGregor on Jan. 18 in Las Vegas. McGregor became the biggest draw in the sport in part because he’s always willing to engage in a war of words with his opponents often rivaling rapper Eminem for the most savage takedowns on the microphone.

He’s made a career out of verbally annihilating fighters like Jose Aldo, Rafael dos Anjos, Eddie Alvarez, Floyd Mayweather and Jeremy Stephens.

McGregor even got into a dust up with Cerrone a few years ago when he was about to compete for the undisputed featherweight championship and his future opponent was sitting behind him on stage. After their fight at UFC 246 was announced, the exchange between Cerrone and McGregor was quickly dug up from the archives as some kind of evidence of a long brewing feud.

The only problem is Cerrone says that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“That’s just you media boys digging and shoveling for sh*t to bring up,” Cerrone said when speaking about the incident to MMA Fighting. “That’s all that was. Conor hasn’t said anything bad about me so you’ve got to go get old sh*t out.”

Cerrone makes a valid point because even after rumors first surfaced that a fight with McGregor could be on the horizon, the typically outspoken former two-division champion was noticeably quiet when it came to serving out insults.

In fact, McGregor has been nothing but cordial towards “Cowboy” even after the main event clash was made official. Maybe that will change once McGregor does an interview or makes an appearance at a press conference to promote the event but even then Cerrone doesn’t expect anything he says to really get under his skin.

“He’s the best at it. He is the best,” Cerrone said about McGregor’s trash talk. “The thing is you’d really have to go low, talk about my grandma or my kid and then it would put it on another level. You understand what I’m saying? Then I’ll just come f*ck you up in the lobby type sh*t.

“I don’t think it’s ever going to go that way. He understands that. We’re fighting, he can talk about that all he wants but don’t low blow.”

Cerrone pays McGregor the same respect by not trudging up a litany of legal issues that have haunted the 31-year-old Irishman for the past few years.

While that might serve as low hanging fruit for some of McGregor’s potential opposition in the future, Cerrone just doesn’t see a need to bring it up for a fight that’s already scheduled to happen in just a few weeks’ time.

“Just like I don’t say nothing about him. I don’t care,” Cerrone said. “He lives his life out of fighting, that’s his thing. I got nothing to say about it. He’s his own man.

“I’m going to try to get in there and mix it up with him. I’m happy to welcome him back.”