Alex Hernandez Accuses Donald Cerrone of Quitting At UFC 246
Lightweight contender Alex Hernandez was bitterly disappointed with Donald Cerrone’s performance at UFC 246. “”Cowboy” fell to a TKO defeat after just 40 seconds in the night’s main event against Conor McGregor.
The 27-year-old was hoping to rematch Cerrone, who inflicted a first UFC defeat on him early last year. However, after seeing his former foe “quit” against McGregor, he is no longer interested in pursuing that fight. Speaking to media members, including MMA Junkie, he said the following.
“That performance made me flaccid. I had this hard on and this vindictive mind that I was going to come and conquer and slaughter Cowboy and get my revenge. It was all out of respect because he is who he is and he beat me, so for me I had this vendetta and I had to go get it.
“The erection that I woke up with every morning with this (expletive) vengeance in mind just fizzled in air and now I don’t want anything to do with that fight. You can call it whatever you want, I don’t need to say anything else about it, I already rambled enough.
“It’s just I watched that fight, and yeah, McGregor did something special, but he quit. You’re going to give me that (expletive) and you’re going to (expletive) quit, like you’re going to give me that performance and you’re going to give McGregor whatever the (expletive) that was? That’s the thing about ‘Cowboy,’ sometimes he shows up, sometimes he doesn’t. I definitely lost the lust for that fight after that performance.”
Upon reflection, Hernandez sees his loss to Cerrone as inevitable. The young fighter admits to heading into fights with the wrong approach and now sees it was always going to catch up with him.
“It was almost inevitable. If it wasn’t Cerrone, it was going to be the next guy with the way I was approaching the fights. I was going into these fights to slug them out in the first two minutes of every fight. That was my mindset. I just don’t talk (expletive), I’m just being transparent, I’m just being confident. It gets confused as arrogance but it’s just awareness, so for me I’ve got no reason to doubt that I’m not going to put this man away.
“Every time they would show me his face, I was like ‘He’s getting older by the minute, I’m about to cripple this man, and I went out there and he did the damn thing. I was like, ‘Ok, this is a reality check that these guys in the top 10 just don’t fold over, they’re not just going to break, they’re not just going to take a hit – as long as you don’t get lucky and knock them out.’
“But as a career, you can’t make that your benchmark on how you’re going to perform. For me, I had to hit the drawing board and figure out how to slow down and compose myself. In that last fight, I did a 180 in the other direction, especially with the shoulder, so I kind of found this middle ground, I found this solace where I’m like, ‘Here’s where I can perform, I’m not going to blow my load in the first 30 (seconds), I’m not going to float on the outside, I’m going to deliver my fight, so that’s where I am.”
Who wins if Alex Hernandez and Donald Cerrone rematch?
