UFC
Donald Cerrone laughing off Khabib Nurmagomedov's pre-UFC 187 trash talk, says it won't be a personal fight
Mar 24, 2015 - 11:40:20 AM Donald Cerrone laughing off Khabib Nurmagomedov's pre-UFC 187 trash talk, says it won't be a personal fight

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

"It's funny to me. I appreciate that he's trying to build this fight up. I really do. But he's not really saying anything, like, under the belt, trying to dig at me, piss me off. I'm not mad. It's just like, enough, man. Everyday he's coming at me. But it's good. Mentally, I'm fine. I'm not worried at all. I get people telling me that I'm scared of Khabib. That's humorous to me as well. I've never been scared of an opponent in my life and I've tried to sign a contract to fight Khabib three times now, so if I was scared, I don't know why I would try to sign a contract three times when no one else would.

I knew he called me a fake cowboy and he's this, whatever, Russian cowboy or whatever he said he was. That's fine. It makes no difference to me. You're trying to get a giant reaction out of me, but I don't care. If he thinks he's the real Russian cowboy, then good, I'm glad. I hope he trains really hard, chops wood, plays with bears, and shows up and fights. That's all I can say. If it means pumping this fight up and getting the fans excited and an extra $50,000 for me, hell yeah. What do I need to do to do that? Let's do that... This isn't personal at all. Not even a drop personal. [Nurmagomedov] is trying, but it's not."

-Donald Cerrone laughs of Khabib Nurmagomedov's latest trash talk in an interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour.

Penick's Analysis: This is more reassuring than some of Cerrone's other comments into the event. At one point he certainly seemed like the trash talking was getting to him a bit, but if it's more of an annoyance and not something that's going to get him off his game, he'll be more competitive. Because of the way his fight went with Nate Diaz when he got too emotionally affected, that's something he absolutely needs to avoid. He says he will here, it seems that'll be the case, and we'll be in for quite a fight on May 23.