Leon Edwards feels Donald Cerrone ‘has lost a few steps’

Heading into his very first UFC main event, Britain’s Leon ‘Rocky’ Edwards isn’t lacking any confidence as he prepares to take on the seasoned veteran, Donald Cerrone.

Edwards hasn’t lost since December 2015 when he fought a fellow rising contender in Kamaru Usman. Now riding high on a sneaky impressive five-fight win streak, Edwards is ready to extend that to six with the biggest name he’ll have fought to date.

“It’s just another day for me,” Edwards told FanSided, “It’s just another body type that I have to compete against. That’s about it, really. My training has changed a little bit to do the five rounds. I’m just focused on what I need to do.

One-hundred-percent [this fight is the next best thing]. I’ve called for Cerrone before. I didn’t get Darren Till so when the phoned me for Donald Cerrone, I said ‘let’s go.’ This fight was one I wanted and it’s good to get out there and fight a legend like Donald Cerrone. It will be a dream of mine to put him away.”

Edwards and Cerrone will meet in the main event of UFC Singapore this Saturday.

Despite the large experience advantage for Cerrone, the young rising contender, Edwards knows that he is more than talented enough to hang with someone of Cerrone’s caliber.

“He’s still dangerous as long as he’s in there fighting. I agree that he has lost a few steps and I think you could see that in his last four or five fights. He’s a 35, 36-year-old man. He’s been in many wars, finished many times. It’s only right that it catches up with him. He’s always been the guy who fights whoever, whenever, and I think it’s proven that it isn’t the right thing to do [right now]. I’ll go out there on Saturday and prove that.

There’s many ways it can go. He’s lost 10 fights and that’s 10 different blueprints to beat the man. I could go out there and push him early, put him away early. I’ve knocked people out in eight seconds and I’ve finished people in the last seconds of a fight. I can finish him wherever the fight goes and I’m prepared for whatever.”

Having lost three of his last four, if Cerrone can pull off what is currently considered an upset according to oddsmakers, he will be back on his first winning streak since 2016.

In Cerrone’s last fight he defeated Yancy Medeiros in the main event of UFC Austin via first-round knockout.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 6/20/2018.