Mike Perry Unveils Results Of Sparring Session With Donald Cerrone
UFC veteran Donald Cerrone has had a highly publicized spat with his longtime team at JacksonWink MMA this week. Adding fuel to that fire, it’s time Cerrone’s upcoming opponent Mike Perry unveils the results of a sparring session he had with ‘Cowboy.
Cerrone took JacksonWink to task this week for supposedly failing to provide enough attention to their top-level fighters. JacksonWink coach Mike Winkeljohn was quick to respond and call Cerrone ‘narcissistic.’ Coach Wink obviously sided with Perry in the ordeal. Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate was none too pleased with that stance.
It’s an ongoing saga. Perry recently revealed the results of his sparring session with Cerrone during an interview with MMAjunkie Radio. “Platinum” said Cerrone was quite easy to hit, but he didn’t want to go full-on with “Cowboy”:
“So I go to the BMF ranch – this would be the second time we sparred. We didn’t even spar, because he’s so easy for me to punch in the face that I didn’t punch him in the face like that. I was throwing jabs, and I was able to just touch him with the end of my glove, and I was like, man, I’m not going to open up on him here in his house on his ranch with all his people around.”
Grappling Was Another Story
Perry then revealed that he still wanted to get a high-level training session in, so he reverted to grappling. He admitted that Cerrone avoided his takedowns and controlled him on the ground for a significant amount of time:
“But I want to get this work, I want to get this aggressive energy out of me. So I started shooting takedowns, and I’m not that good at wrestling; just defensive wrestling moreso. And we went for 23 minutes straight. There wasn’t a lot of punches involved. I started shooting in takedowns to get that energy going and get that sweat and actually try hard.
“So I start shooting takedowns, and he kind of reversed me. I got up once or twice, and then the last 10 minutes of that round, he was on top of me. I was trying to pull some sweeps, or subs, but he’s a slick grappler, too, I wasn’t able to get him off of me the last 10 minutes.
“He’s laying on me at 23 minutes, and he kind of looks at me, and I just tapped him on the shoulder, like, ‘Alright, (expletive), get off of me.’”
Perry made it plain to see that Cerrone seemingly controlled him during their grappling exchanges. He does appear to insist he got the better of the striking, however.
Cerrone and Perry will square off in the co-main event of November 10’s UFC Fight Night 139 from Denver, Colorado.
