Can 'Cowboy' Cerrone Kill the King?

The rematch between Donald Cerrone and Rafael dos Anjos should be one of the most anticipated fights of 2015. They don't talk a great deal of smack, they are fighting on TV rather than pay-per-view, and they haven't received much promotional push but the seasoned fans know that this match up is solid gold.

Cerrone has always been a fan favourite for two reasons. He finishes fights and he fights a lot. No one ever found fault with what Anthony Pettis did in the cage and he should have been a superstar but he's fought twice in two years. It's the same with Cain Velasquez whom the UFC are flogging like a dead horse: no one has been drawn to him like the breakthrough star he was supposed to be because they rarely see him fight and it's even more rare to see him fight somebody new. I'll have plenty of opportunity to moan about the UFC's heavyweight division where 'the best fight the best three times a year' as we get closer to yet another title rematch in the first week of February, but for now my point is that inactivity kills any potential to be a star. With four fights in 2013, 2014 and 2015, Cerrone is one of the most active fighters in the UFC.

While his fellow WEC alumni Benson Henderson and Anthony Pettis fought their way up to the title, Cerrone fell short. While considered one of the best strikers in the division and a skilled grappler to boot, Cerrone's game was lacking in certain areas. Young Cerrone was something of a bully—if his opponents retreated under fire he excelled. The running low kicks followed and hacked away at their trailing leg. Opponents who flinched at his feints were in for a shellacking. Nowhere was this more obvious than against Jeremy Stephens. But when his opponents stepped in on him, he struggled.

What Cerrone suffered from was the weakness of every man with a height and reach advantage in his division. Those long levers mean that when the opponent gets close enough to throw their straights, the taller man is throwing awkward looping blows that bow out and are easily beaten to the mark. When he fought Nate Diaz, Cerrone took a hell of a beating in the opening round due to his insistance on trading punches with a man who punched straighter and cleaner, and almost always beat Cerrone to the target. The same thing could be seen at moments against Melvin Guillard, who quickly clipped Cerrone with punches before that switch kick put him down, and against Anthony Pettis who did an excellent job of being too far away for Cerrone to kick, or too close for Cerrone to comfortably punch.

Cerrone has done a great job mitigating that with his successful incorporation of intercepting knee strikes in recent fights however. Evan Dunham, Eddie Alvarez and Jim Miller all winded themselves by driving onto Cerrone's knee and weren't keen to do it again.

What's more, Cerrone's management of distance has proven much better. Rather than just throwing back, he'll concede ground and re-establish the distance which favours him. While backing up on a straight line is generally discouraged in boxing, there's a ton of exceptions. When you're a much taller fighter and fighting in a circular cage that almost no-one is competent in cutting off, you're a good deal safer.

Now 9-1 since May of 2013, Cerrone's sole loss in that period of reinvention was to the man whom he fights this weekend for the UFC lightweight title, Rafael dos Anjos. The first match was far from one sided though Dos Anjos' pressure, body work and grappling earned him a unanimous decision in which neither man was close to being stopped. Now scheduled for a full five rounds, Cerrone and Dos Anjos have a chance to finish their business.

Dos Anjos himself has been a fighter reborn. Up until his victories over Evan Dunham and Cerrone you would have a hard time describing Dos Anjos as anything but a hit-and-miss also ran. Since then Dos Anjos has bested Benson Henderson, Nate Diaz and Anthony Pettis. That most recent bout for the championship was easily the finest performance of Dos Anjos' career as he walked down Pettis and cut the cage on him. Pettis' incredible kicking game was completely defused and he found himself either panicking on the lead or waiting to be hit along the fence for five whole rounds.

While many of Rafael Cordeiro's charges become known for their aggression, there is little of the wildness often associated with that trait in Dos Anjos and his work in constantly defending himself while moving forwards was tremendous. Ducking down behind his shoulders, stiff arming Pettis mid-combination to move out of punching range. It was tremendous.

Dos Anjos here demonstrates the reverse shoulder roll which made Jersey Joe Walcott such a wonderful fighter along the ropes.

The success that Dos Anjos found in the first fight with Cerrone was not in crowding him, but in measured kickboxing, focusing on attacking the body. Cerrone has often had trouble keeping his right arm in front of his liver when the opponent moves in on him and has that flinch reaction of getting the guard up high at the sign of a charge. Anthony Pettis connected repeatedly with the round kick to the liver, and Dos Anjos found success with the same.

Dos Anjos also utilized the left hook and straight to the body to great effect. By repeatedly changing level to hit Cerrone's right side, Dos Anjos set up the low-high which culminated in a knockdown by his right hook.

The same simple combination worked wonders when Anthony Pettis wanted to circle away from Dos Anjos' powerful left kicks along the fence.

Cerrone, however, found the mark well with his lead leg low kick. With Dos Anjos being a southpaw, this served to connect on the outside of Dos Anjos' lead leg and often with the effect of throwing Dos Anjos' lead foot across his body. Furthermore, Cerrone's new front snap kick showed itself and at no point did he suffer a counter or a takedown attempt as a result of throwing it. The front snap kick is a brilliant technique for a tall kicker because it keeps a knee between the kicker and his target. Round kicks, meanwhile, have that awful moment when mistimed or telegraphed when the opponent can step straight inside of them and start punching.

But the original fight wasn't all striking. One of Dos Anjos' keys to victory was his ability to take Cerrone down and hold him there. Cerrone had to that point only spent sixteen seconds on his back in the UFC. Dos Anjos held him there for a minute or so at a time, and was remarkably active from inside the guard. We don't see so many fighters ground and pound successfully from the guard in the modern era, but Dos Anjos has been able to pull it off against some of the highest level guards in his division.

The fans haven't been so keen on Dos Anjos as they always have on Cerrone. I feel 'RDA' suffers from that same fault that Chris Weidman did and that Luke Rockhold and others will—he's a great all rounder but this in turn forces nothing to stand out. With Cerrone you know that you're waiting for the round kicks and then you can chant olé or take a shot. With Dos Anjos, he'll grind his man down wherever, normally through all stages of the game. There's no one thing to hang onto and that makes him hard for the average viewer to appreciate. Whether you like it or not, MMA fans like signature moves and finishers as much as pro wrestling fans.

Donald Cerrone has to be the champion the UFC wants. He's active, he's well liked, he's got an exciting fighting and as his enduring relationship with Budweiser even after all the nonsense of the Reebok deal will attest, he's marketable. Certainly it would be nice to see a fighter who takes so many risks in fighting so often be rewarded for it. Whatever the case, get back here Monday for our post mortem of the last major card of the year.

Pick up Jack's new kindle book, Finding the Art, or find him at his blog, Fights Gone By.

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