UFC legend Georges St-Pierre thinks Donald Cerrone’s best chance of beating Conor McGregor at UFC 246 later this month is by taking the Irishman to the ground.
McGregor will make his long-awaited comeback to the Octagon when he takes on UFC veteran Cerrone and is the overwhelming favourite to win.
However, former two-weight world champion St-Pierre thinks ‘Cowboy’ has a chance – but only if he is able to takedown McGregor.
“If it’s a quick fight it’s going to be McGregor,” he said. “If it’s a long fight it’s going to be Cerrone.
“[It] depends if Cerrone comes and tries to grapple because he has a very good ground game, his ground game is very underrated.
“I’ve trained with him before, he has good takedown; he is very explosive to shoot the takedown. People don’t know that because he doesn’t use it much [but] he used it against Patrick Cote.
“If he does that, to weather the first couple minutes of the storm and McGregor’s powerful left hand, I think he can get it.
“I think if he wrestles in round one he has a good chance to win but, if he tries to play a boxing and karate game with McGregor, McGregor will knock him out… it’s hard.
“The odds are more towards McGregor but Cerrone can pull this off too. It’s at 170, [it’s] Cerrone [advantage] I think. McGregor looks big. I don’t know enough about McGregor but, from what I’ve seen is he is like a sniper.
“When you fight a sniper, you need to move, you need change levels, you need change angles, change [the] distance and I don’t know if Cerrone will do that.
“He is known to be a slow starter as usual, so if he doesn’t start right away hard with the speed he is going to get caught.”
