How Cowboy Cerrone gave the UFC the best 25th birthday present ever

Meet the new Cowboy. Same as the old Cowboy.

Well, almost.

“Get me my (bleeping bleeping) boy,” Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, Denver’s favorite welterweight son, shouted after submitting Mike Perry by arm bar in the first round at UFC Fight 139 at Pepsi Center on Saturday night. “Get my (bleeping) boy.”

That would be Dacson, Cerrone’s 4-and-a-half-month-old son, with whom the MMA veteran spent the majority of his post-fight glee, kissing him one second, lifting him high in the air, Lion King-style, the next.

Cowboy didn’t want to go into the UFC record books — the former Air Academy High grad is now the MMA circuit’s all-time leader in victories (21) and finishes (15) — without loved ones along for the ride. Although as UFC president Dana White reminded Cerrone, doesn’t grandmother Jerry usually ride shotgun when the sun’s shining this bright?

“Felt so bad, I put my grandma in second place,” chuckled Cerrone, whose arm bar of Perry 4:46 into the first round brought the announced crowd of 11,426 into rapture. “First person I called for is my son.”

He paused.

“Maybe I am changing.”

But the Cowboy proved that he can still ride with the best of ‘em on the big stage, even against up-and-comers. The UFC’s No. 12-ranked welterweight, who says he’s planning a drop down to lightweight, went on to share Performance of the Night honors with featherweight Yair Rodriguez. In the evening’s other main event, Rodriguez knocked out The Korean Zombie on a last-ditch reverse elbow with one second remaining in the fifth round.

The last two fights tied a fitting bow on the UFC’s 25th anniversary celebration in Denver this week. Retro logos, retro graphics, retro towels were everywhere as the organization celebrated its first ever event, an eight-man tourney held at McNichols Arena back on November 12, 1993.

“Everything about this is cool to me,” said Cerrone (34-11), who took home a pair of UFC 1-themed interview backdrops that had been set up in the media workroom, his final plunders on a snowy night. “Couldn’t have dreamt it any better.”

He couldn’t have scripted it much better, either. With 1:49 to go in the opening round, Perry — who had Cerrone’s old striking coach, Mike Winkeljohn, in his corner — had sent Cerrone to the canvas but couldn’t do much with the advantage. Less than 20 seconds later, the Cowboy flipped the smaller Perry for a reverse. The Coloradoan rode Perry’s back, trying to land a back mount and a triangle choke. When the Florida native attempted to straighten up and get in position to punch from above, Cerrone slithered his way into complete control of Perry’s left arm.

When Perry rose to try to buck Cowboy, Cerrone held firm, twisting away. The younger fighter refused to tap, and tweeted later that the hold had broken his left arm.

“I felt it pop before I went belly-down,” Cerrone recalled. “He should’ve rolled the other way. I was surprised that he didn’t.”

Earlier in the night, Raquel Pennington, a native of Colorado Springs who’d entered the weekend ranked No. 4 in women’s bantamweight, fell to No. 5 Germaine de Randamie by unanimous decision, 30-27.

While Cerrone was making his 29th UFC appearance and Pennington her 10th, another Coloradoan threatened to steal the undercard with her first. And The Future is now, baby.

Maycee Barber, a 20-year-old fighter out of Fort Collins dubbed “The Future,” made an explosive UFC debut, defeating Hannah Cifers by TKO just 2:01 into the second round of her women’s strawweight bout.

“To be honest with you, it felt he same as every other fight I’ve done,” said Barber, the youngest of three Colorado natives on the card. “I just felt that I belonged here.”

Barber (6-0) made a powerful case in the octagon, landing 68 significant strikes to Cifers’ 41. The Future came in as one of the new faces to watch on a sneaky-good undercard, having yet to lose in five professional bouts coming into the event. The 26-year-old Cifers, who took the fight on short notice, was also making her UFC debut, having brought an 8-2 record and a five-match win streak into Denver.

Barber was bigger, stronger, and more aggressive from the outset, an approach that started to pay real dividends early in the second round. A body kick to Cifers — whose corner advised her to avoid the clinch against the taller Barber after Round 1 — opened things up. A flurry of elbows and ground-and-pound finished it.

With blood pouring from Cifers’ nose, the local strawweight continued to press, her kicks and well-timed elbows ripping the cut open wider. Cifers and Barber went down in a heap early in Round 2, with the older fighter attempting a triangle and then a heel hook, to no avail. Once the Coloradoan squirted into a top position, dropping hammer after hammer, a stoppage was seemingly inevitable.

Cifers, now bleeding profusely, tried a leg lock, also without success, and Barber regained control at the top, pummeling away for more than 15 seconds before referee Kevin MacDonald called the fight.

The Future hasn’t shied away from setting the bar high: The Colorado native wants to be the youngest champion in UFC history. The record under the league’s current format rests with light heavyweight Jon Jones, who won a title in 2011 at the age of 23 years, eight months.

To that end, she shared words with White, sitting cage-side, after a dominating debut.

“I mean, that’s what I’m here to do — I’m not going to shy away from anything,” Barber said. “I’m in this career for a reason, and I’m going to state everything I want.”

The kid’s got guts. And The Future, at first blush, is staring at one heck of a present, too.

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