Daniel Cormier: 'It doesn't feel right for enhanced Donald Cerrone to return'

Earlier this week, UFC legend Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone stated his plans to come out of retirement for two more fights to reach the milestone of 50 fights under the Zuffa LLC banner (UFC and WEC).  Cerrone retired in July 2022 with 48 combined fights inside the UFC and WEC octagons.

In the two years away from competition, Cerrone has admittedly used performance enhancing substances.

“I want to go back and get two more fights,” Cerrone said in a video posted to Instagram. “When I retired, I told you I was getting my hair done and get on steroids. The No. 50 has been sitting on my mind for a while. So, I’ve been working with Transcend for the last two years, taking TRT [testosterone-replacement therapy] and a bunch of peptides.

“Now, we’ve got a protocol for all you people that, ‘Oh, what if you get on it, you can’t ever come off it.’ Well, I now have to come off and piss clean, and fight in a few months. Watch this.”

Former two-division UFC champion Daniel Cormier saw first hand how the use of steroids affected Cerrone.  

“I saw Donald and he was just so much better.  But at the end of the day, for years now, he’s been openly using steroids,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel.  “And when I saw him, he told me I should do it because he said he’s never felt better.  He seemed happier.  He had more energy.  It seemed to me that Donald was doing great.”

“Now, I find out that outside of the movies, because remember guys the movies.  He was doing all these things.  He was really starting to build his portfolio outside of mixed martial arts.  But during all of that he’s been training,” Cormier continued.  “When you’re training, you start to feel better.  You start to feel like yourself again especially with the help and you go, ‘hell, I want to fight again.’  But at the end of the day, Cowboy’s been doing steroids openly.” 

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While people are free to make their own choices on what they put in their bodies, there are anti-doping protocols and testing procedures.  Cormier was uncomfortable with the ‘loophole’ Cerrone wants to use to return to the octagon.  

“It doesn’t matter how I feel about him as a person, as a buddy, or whatever it is our relationship is today.  I don’t quite know what it is, but he has not been clean,” Cormier said.  “If he can come back, take tests, pass those tests, for him to get back he had to do all those things, all those enhancers to allow for him to feel like compete at that level again.  

“So, he would test clean, but isn’t that just a loophole?  Isn’t it just a loophole like the guys that when they get hurt they get out of the testing pool, they recover from the injury then reenter the testing pool.  It’s not wrong.  It’s not illegal, but is it right? Because you truly have been enhanced to get to where you are and how you feel.”  

“To me, it doesn’t feel fight.”