Morning Report: Georges St-Pierre predicts Conor McGregor vs. Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone

Wednesday, January 8, 2020 - 16:00

Michael Bisping vs Georges St-Pierre Press Conference

Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

The MMA world is currently in one of its most prolonged quiet periods in years. There’s been no UFC event since UFC Busan in December and it will be nearly two more weeks until the premier organization in the sport returns with UFC 246 on Jan. 18. In that gap, the MMA world has turned to end-of-year and end-of-decade lists to fill the void of MMA content. But, with UFC 246 now close enough to start getting excited, the MMA world is gearing up for the return of Conor McGregor by discussing how his fight with Donald Cerrone might play out. Even the greatest fighter of all time is getting in on the action.

Speaking recently on the Tristar Youtube Channel, Georges St-Pierre gave his opinion on the UFC 246 title fight, saying that Cerrone has a good chance to win, if he employs the right gameplan.

“If it’s a quick fight it’s going to be McGregor, if it’s a long fight it’s going to be Cerrone,” St-Pierre said. “It depends, if Cerrone comes and tries to grapple because he’s got a very, very good ground game, his ground game is very underrated. I’ve trained with him before and he’s got a good takedown. He is very explosive to shoot the takedown. People doesn’t know that because he doesn’t use it much - he used it against Patrick Cote - but 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.”

But whether or not Cerrone will employ that gameplan is another question entirely. St-Pierre and Cerrone have spent some time training together under Greg Jackson, but while GSP is regarded as one of the greatest tacticians in MMA history, Cerrone has been far more willing to engage in the kind of action fights that fans love, but that may not play to his strengths. So, even though St-Pierre thinks Cowboy has the tools to win, he still isn’t sure Cerrone will actually use them appropriately.

“It depends what will be his approach, what tools he’s gonna use,” St-Pierre continued. “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 tag him and knock him out.

“It’s hard. The odds are more towards McGregor but Cerrone can pull this off too. It’s at 170 [which gives Cerrone the advantage] but McGregor looks big. I don’t know enough about McGregor, but from what I’ve seen is he is like a sniper,. When you fight a sniper, you need to move, you need change levels, you need change angles, change distance, and I don’t know if Cerrone will do that because he’s known to be a very slow starter as usual, so if he does that, if he doesn’t start right away hard with the speed he is going to get caught.”

Cerrone and McGregor will fight in the main event of UFC 246 on Jan. 18 in Las Vegas, Nev.

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VIDEO STEW

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SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE

Mike Perry being Mike Perry.

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Shooting his shot.

View this post on Instagram

Never thought I’d have to go this route, but then again, I also never imagined a laundry list of ranked professional tough guys turning down a fight with a skinny, blinky kid from the suburbs... Frankie Edgar and Jose Aldo are two people for whom courage won’t ever be an issue and it’s for that reason I have looked up to both since I first saw them compete years ago. Maybe one of them would be willing to step in to show everybody else how it’s done? Pick the time and place, boys. I’ll be there.

A post shared by Ryan Hall (@ryanhall5050) on Jan 7, 2020 at 10:08am PST

FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Tim Means (29-11-1) vs. Ramazan Emeev (18-4); UFC Rio Rancho, Feb. 15.

Felicia Spencer (7-1) vs. Zarah Fairn (6-3); UFC Norfolk, Feb. 29.

Megan Anderson (9-4) vs. Norma Dumont (4-0) UFC Norfolk, Feb. 29.

Aalon Cruz (8-2) vs. Steven Peterson (18-9) UFC Norfolk, Feb. 29.

Brendan Allen (13-3) vs. Tom Breese (11-1) UFC Norfolk, Feb. 29.

Ismail Naurdiev (19-3) vs. Sean Brady (11-0) UFC Norfolk, Feb. 29.

Marcin Tybura (17-6) vs. Sergey Spivak (10-1) UFC Norfolk, Feb. 29.

Ion Cutelaba (15-4) vs. Magomed Ankalaev (12-1) UFC Norfolk, Feb. 29.

Rodolfo Vieira (6-0) vs. Saparbek Safarov (9-2); UFC 248, March 7.

Alex Oliveira (20-8-1) vs. Max Griffin (15-7); UFC 248, March 7.

Mike Grundy (12-1) vs. Makwan Amirkhani (15-4); UFC London, March 21.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Thanks for reading and see y’all tomorrow.

EXIT POLL

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Source: 
https://www.mmafighting.com/2020/1/8/21056164/morning-report-georges-st-pierre-predicts-conor-mcgregor-vs-donald-cowboy-cerrone