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Earlier this week, Donald Cerrone shocked the MMA world by coming out publicly against his long-time camp, JacksonWink MMA, over allowing recent import - and soon to be opponent for Cerrone - Mike Perry to continue training at the camp despite Cerrone’s longstanding ties to the gym. ‘Cowboy’ went after head striking coach Mike Winkeljohn particularly, saying that Winkeljohn ruined the quality of the gym in pursuit of money. Winkeljohn quickly responded that Cerrone was at fault for the division, calling him “as narcissistic as they come.” Now, the MMA public is choosing sides and at least one luminary is definitely on Team Cerrone.
Speaking recently on MMA Tonight on SiriusXM Fight Nation, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate says JacksonWink has been in this position before and they should have shown more loyalty towards a fighter who has been with the gym since its inception instead of the new kid in town.
“This is reminiscent,” Tate said. “I feel like we’ve heard this story about this camp before when it was Rashad Evans and him feeling like he was pushed out of the spot with Jon Jones coming in.
“What I think is not cool, if it had been someone that had been training there like Carlos Condit or someone like that who had been training there a long time and they were gonna fight each other and both had that mutual respect, and mutual foundation at that gym, that’s different. But when the new guy is coming in and he’s like, ‘I wanna fight Cowboy’ and he comes to Cowboy’s gym, I think that the right thing to do by the gym - I think there’s some loyalty that should be towards Cowboy. He’s been there a really, really long time.”
As one of the premier camps in MMA, this isn’t the first time this has been an issue for JacksonWink. Rashad Evans trained with JacksonWink for years, winning the UFC light heavyweight title with the team in 2008. But as Jon Jones rose to prominence through the camp, the situation became tenuous and Jones eventually stepped in for an injured Evans to compete for the light heavyweight title, winning the belt and precipitating Evans’ exit from the team. While the situations are fundamentally different (Perry only began training with JacsksonWink in the last few months), Tate thinks the entire situation could have been handled with more grace, suggesting that JacksonWink should have just told Perry he couldn’t train with them for this fight.
“‘This is probably not the camp for you to come in, Mike, because you’re fighting our boy. Cowboy has been with us forever. We’d love for you to come in for the next camp but Cowboy’s our dude,’” Tate said. “That’s how I think. Even though I know Cowboy doesn’t drive there every single day, he doesn’t train at the gym - there are some other reasons I think behind that, I think - that’s just me. That’s how I hope my gym would operate if I was under those circumstances.”
Donald Cerrone faces Mike Perry in the co-main event of UFC Denver on Nov. 10.
Morning Report: Miesha Tate thinks JacksonWink treatment of ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone is ‘not cool’
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