Longo: Cerrone ‘Froze’ In McGregor Fight
Stephen A. Smith has company when it comes to criticizing Donald Cerrone’s performance last weekend.
Cerrone suffered a 40-second TKO defeat to Conor McGregor at UFC 246. It was an underwhelming performance from the UFC veteran who also failed to land a single strike. Smith unloaded on Cerrone’s showing and has received plenty of criticism since.
However, MMA head coach Ray Longo was also pretty disappointed by the performance. Appearing on the Anik & Florian podcast (via MMAMania), Longo felt Cerrone simply froze up during the occasion.
“Man I gotta say, I have no idea besides the fact that what I saw is just a guy that looked like he froze up,” Longo said. “I mean he slips the left hand. I would’ve thought just instinctively, that guy ends up on his back. I mean he almost went over him.
“And then he got hit with a couple of shoulder bumps, which is definitely nothing new. Instead of kneeing or elbowing, I don’t know what he did. You’d have to ask him what was going on. It looked like he just froze up to me.”
Longo went one step further and added that fight IQ went out the window for Cerrone.
“Fight IQ, obviously,” Longo added. “I think, Kenny, there was no fight IQ. I don’t know what he did.”
Harsh words from Longo, but the fact remains that many expected much more from Cerrone in what was arguably the biggest fight of his career.
