Jorge Masvidal Breaks Down Conor McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone
Everyone is ready for UFC 246 later this month (Sat. January 18, 2020). In the main event of the pay-per-view (PPV), Conor McGregor will make his highly-anticipated return, taking on Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone at 170 pounds.
It will be McGregor’s first fight back since suffering a submission loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov in October of 2018. One man who will likely be in attendance is Jorge Masvidal, the UFC’s BMF Champion. Masvidal recently spoke to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani on “The Ariel Helwani MMA Show” to offer his take on the matchup. “Gamebred” said he thinks McGregor can catch Cerrone, who is a slow starter, early to put things away. (via MMA Junkie)
“It can go many ways,” Masvidal said. “Conor is great off the block. He’s phenomenal off the start. ‘Cowboy’ is a slow starter. Conor has tremendous speed and timing in the beginning, good power, so I think he can catch him early.”
However, Masvidal does admit that there is a path to victory for Cerrone through his grappling. If Cerrone comes out looking to grapple early with McGregor, mixing things up in the process, we could be in store for a masterful performance from “Cowboy.”
“If ‘Cowboy’ comes out to grapple like he has in the past with decent strikers and even good grapplers like Rick Story, who he was able to take down and create a lot of offense like that … if that ‘Cowboy’ comes out, he can mix things up real nice. And then he can start to flow and get into his game of high kicks and punching and being tricky, like a dual threat to Conor.”
Cerrone has said, however, that he plans to come out and bang with McGregor. If that’s the case, Masvidal sees McGregor getting the job done within two rounds.
“If (Cerrone) just comes out to fight it out, I see Conor winning within the first two rounds.”
What do you think about Masvidal’s prediction for McGregor vs. Cerrone?
