There’s danger lurking when you look too far forward. You know the old athlete’s cliche ‘We take it one game at a time”? Yes, it’s trite. And you can put good money on the fact that the same athlete also gives 110% and thinks winning is a team effort. But, it’s a cliche for a reason. Just ask Donald Cerrone and War Machine.
Both men were prohibitive favorites going into their fights this week. Both talked more about their next fight than they did their current opponent. Both got a little cocky. And both lost. See a pattern here?
War Machine (yes, that is his legal name) lost a decision to David Mitchell Thursday after saying his opponent wasn’t on his level. War Machine is a noted nutjob. Case in point? He changed his name to War Machine. So, we’ll put that to the side. Cerrone’s loss is the more painful, especially to the WEC.
Yes, Benson Henderson is a nice young man, a Christian, a humble and honorable warrior, the black Matt Hughes. But, he’s not Donald Cerrone. Cerrone is the WEC’s most personable fighter, a charismatic cowboy behatted bad boy who talks as good as he fights. He spent months building up a rematch with Varner. The WEC was ready for the monster push. Varner was waiting in the wings, ready to go nose-to-nose with Cerrone to promote what might have been the WEC’s biggest non-Faber event of all time.
Instead, Cerrone lost a close back-and-forth fight to Henderson, a wrestler who must have no bones or blood vessels to have survived the locks and chokes he did Saturday night. “That’s the one that gets me up in the morning,” Cerrone said about Varner. Looks like he should have set an alarm clock for Ben Henderson instead.