Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone is someone you can expect to be gunning for your head the moment the fight begins. But he also has developed another reputation as being one of the more friendly fighters in the UFC, including to future opponents. Al Iaquinta has already taken notice of this as well, and he’s not falling for it ahead of their UFC Ottawa clash (transcript via BJPenn.com):
“You got to be careful with that guy, I don’t know,” Iaquinta said on BJPenn.com Radio. “He was trying to get real buddy-buddy with me at the on sale tour when we went to Toronto to sell the tickets. He was asking me a bunch of questions about real estate and stuff, and I was giving him one word answers. Like, ‘Alright bro. Let’s not get too friendly.’”
Donald Cerrone’s latest opponent, Alexander Hernandez, made similar observations. And though Hernandez shunned Cerrone’s friendliness in a much more impudent manner, Al Iaquinta is equally as disinterested in chumming up with a man who looks to deter him from reaching his goals:
“He likes that,” Iaquinta said of Cerrone being friendly with opponents. ”Like, he kind of like tries to fool you into thinking, ‘Oh, we’re going to have a nice fight.’ It ain’t going to be a nice fight. I’m f***ing going after him. It’s going to be all respect, but I’m not going to be hugging his grandma after and like, ‘Oh, good fight. That was great,’ you know?
“He wants the same shit I want, and I want it more, so I’m going out there to take it. It’s not going to be like f***ing a Yancy Medeiros fight. It’s going to be where I’m in his face the whole time. There’s no hugging in between knockdowns and shit like that.”
Do you agree with Al Iaquinta? Should he actively avoid being too friendly with Donald Cerrone ahead of their UFC Ottawa headliner?
