Georges St-Pierre predicts Conor McGregor vs “Cowboy” Cerrone

UFC 246 will be the first UFC event of 2020. In the star-studded main event Conor McGregor makes his return against Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, in an exciting welterweight bout. Ahead of the massive event, former UFC welter- and middleweight champion Georges St-Pierre shared his thoughts on McGregor vs Cerrone.

One could sum it up “GSP’s” thoughts  on the fight as the following:

“If it’s a quick fight it’s going to be McGregor,”  “GSP” said in a video released on TriStar’s YouTube channel. “If it’s a long fight it’s going to be Cerrone.”

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St-Pierre feels that the length of the bout will likely be determined by Cerrone’s game plan. Will “Cowboy” elect for a stand up battle, or will he use his underrated grappling?

“[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,” he said. “People don’t know that because he doesn’t use it much. 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.”

While St-Pierre wouldn’t outright choose a winner in the bout, he seems to be leaning towards McGregor. This echoes many sentiments as well as the official betting lines set up ahead of the fight.

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“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. 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,” said  “GSP”. “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.”

UFC 246 goes down at the T Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, April 18th.

What do you make of St-Pierre’s take on the fight?