From seemingly out of nowhere, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone unloaded a diatribe directed at Jackson Wink MMA Academy and Mike Winkeljohn in particular on Wednesday’s installment of The Joe Rogan Experience MMA Show. The biggest accusation Cerrone levied against Winkeljohn is that he drove him out of the gym in favor of gym newcomer Mike Perry and more money, even though Cerrone had been with the gym for 10 years.
“Loyalty is two sides,” Winkeljohn told MMAjunkie. “‘Cowboy’ is not loyal to anybody in the gym. He’s on his own. He does his own thing. He has not, from what I can remember in the last 10 years, ever helped anybody out with their own camp. He’s as narcissistic as they come.
“I put up with it for a long time because Greg has the biggest heart in the world. He’s like my little brother. But at the same time, it was causing division.”
Cerrone also mentioned the dropoff in the team’s winning percentage as of late, which Winkeljohn attributes partly to Cerrone:
“And by the way, of the teams that went out there, I think it’s 100 percent of people lost, because ‘Cowboy’ wants to do what he wants to do on his timeframe, and it didn’t work for the fighters that train out there at the gym. So that made our percentage look bad, because we lost a lot of fights because of it.
“…I’m so much happier now that I got rid of the division in my gym (and) somebody that doesn’t want to help others and wants to do his own thing. It has absolutely nothing to do with Perry, and everything to do with Perry.”
When it came down to Mike Perry fighting Donald Cerrone and whom Winkeljohn would be backing, the coach says that it was a no-brainer. And what’s more, he says that Donald Cerrone would do the same thing if the roles were reversed:
“What would ‘Cowboy’ do if it was his gym? Well let me think,” he said. “If I wanted to go into his gym use it when I wanted to, not be respectful, not help others, pull people and coaches away from the gym, and do things for myself, and then tell the new gym not to work with this person they’ve been working with because it’s all about yourself, what would ‘Cowboy’ do? I know what ‘Cowboy’ would do: The same thing I did, and that was basically, ‘Sorry kids, (expletive) that.’”
Who do you believe is in the right here? Donald Cerrone or Mike Winkeljohn?
