Dana White: Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone have ‘earned’ their fight, Daniel Cormier has three fights left

Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone has officially returned to the lightweight division. And in doing so, he got back on a winning streak when he picked up a second-round TKO win over the hot prospect in Alex Hernandez at UFC Brooklyn.

It was a thrilling and sound victory that caught the attention of many as it let everyone know that Cowboy isn’t done quite yet. One of those that was impressed was the former UFC lightweight champion, Conor McGregor.

Despite his continual looking for ‘big’ ‘money fights’, since his most recent defeat at UFC 229, Conor McGregor has seemed more open to other options and he made that clear after Cerrone’s victory when he mentioned him by name in a tweet that immediately followed the fight.

UFC President Dana White is, of course, on board with the idea of this fan-friendly matchup as well.

“I’d like to see Conor fight this Summer, those two want to fight each other; they’ve both earned it,” White told MMAjunkie following the UFC 234 pre-fight press conference in Australia. “Cowboy’s fought anybody we’ve ever put against him. We throw this young killer Hernandez at him, Cowboy’s the underdog and he goes in and does it the way he did it, then Conor’s fought everybody. If these two want to fight, I’m down.”

As for another one of the UFC’s biggest stars, Daniel Cormier had one hell of a 2018 but there are a lot of question marks going into 2019 as Cormier has been vocal about it being his last year competing.

However, despite Cormier’s plan to retire by his 40th birthday in March, White sees other possibilities.

“I don’t think he’s on a timeline, DC’s hurt,” White said. “He was talkin’ about retirement, you know me, I’m the first guy to say when somebody needs to retire… That guy doesn’t need to retire, he’s the man. I think he’s probably got three fights left in him.

“In a perfect world, which we know this isn’t a perfect world, I think you see Brock [Lesnar], I think you see Stipe [Miocic], and hopefully Jon Jones. And those are his three [and] he’ll go out with a bang, man. Then he’ll probably retire.”

How many of these potential matchups do you think we’ll see this year if any?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/7/2019