WEC 51 Preview: Donald Cerrone and Jamie Varner set for grudge match
In today’s mixed martial arts environment, it’s most common to see two athletes who are about to fight each other maintaining a professional level of respect towards the other. It’s nothing personal –
just business.
That’s not the case with Donald Cerrone and Jamie Varner, who are set to clash Thursday night as the co-main event of WEC 51 in grudge match put on by World Extreme Cagefighting and broadcast on the Versus
network. In this case, Cerrone hasn’t spared any amount of trash talk, making it known what he thinks of Varner.
"As a fighter, he’s awesome," Cerrone said. "But as a person he’s a punk [expletive]. That’s really what it is. I’ve got nothing good to say about him."
So what’s the history between these two men?
The first match
Varner used to hold the WEC lightweight belt before it was captured from him by current champion Ben Henderson. Back at WEC 38 in January 2009 it was Cerrone who challenged him for the belt.
The two went at it for over four close rounds. After Varner beat him up the first round, Cerrone came back in round two and locked on a triangle choke at the end, but the bell rang before Varner could be
choked unconscious. Varner used his wrestling over the next two rounds to take Cerrone down, with Cerrone managing some good shots on the feet. Finally in fifth Cerrone accidentally hit Varner with a knee while Varner was on the ground, making it an illegal
blow. Varner was unable to continue and the fight was sent to the scorecards, where Varner took a split decision victory.
Cerrone thought poorly of Varner’s decision that he couldn’t continue in the first fight, and that Varner simply stopped because he thought he was in trouble.
Since then
Varner wasn’t able to fight due to injury after that fight and was out for an extended period, so Cerrone went on next to challenge Henderson to determine an interim lightweight belt holder. The result to
that fight, deemed 2009's Fight of the Year by Sherdog.com was a highly controversial victory for Henderson. Cerrone bounced back with a win over Ed Ratcliff.
After Henderson beat Cerrone, he challenged for Varner’s belt and took it away successfully with a third round guillotine choke. Varner then came back to headline WEC 49 in Edmonton, and earned a controversial
draw against Kamal Shalorus.
After his fight with Ratcliff, Varner came back to settle the rivalry between him and Henderson once and for all, but quickly succumbed to a guillotine choke in the first round.
Style, odds and prediction
Varner is an excellent wrestler and likes to stand and trade on the feet and shoot for takedowns if he thinks his opponent is getting the best of the stand-up war. He has good power in his fists and has
proven knockout ability.
Cerrone on the other hand also has good stand-up but perhaps not Varner’s wrestling ability. He does however have dynamic submissions off of his back, including guillotine chokes and triangles.
Varner is the favourite at 2/3 for this fight. The better money would be on Cerrone at 4/3 to catch Varner in submission somewhere over the course of the three-round fight.
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