Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight Donald Cerrone is riding a five-fight winning streak that dates back to UFC 167. The last man to beat him, Rafael dos Anjos, is one of the few lightweights in UFC ranked ahead of him.
Cerrone is currently No. 4 and looking for a title shot.
To leapfrog to the top of that list -- ahead of Khabib Nurmagomedov, Gilbert Melendez, and the aforementioned Dos Anjos -- he'll have to beat No. 8-ranked Myles Jury at UFC 182, but he's not worried about the potential upset if "Fury" wins or what happens next.
He's just "having fun."
"Mentally, I'm where I need to be. You know I'm back (to) having fun. People ask why I do all this crazy shit. I used to take a fight in Japan, fly over there on a Wednesday, go straight off the plane to the bar. Party for two days straight, make weight, and go fight. Fighting to me was just fun. All the pressure and the build-up never weighed on me back then. To me, it's just back to having fun, going back to my old roots."
Cerrone picked apart potential contenders like Edson Barboza, Jim Miller, and Eddie Alvarez in quick succession in 2014, leading to talk that he's ready to rematch Anthony Pettis. In talking to The Fight Corner and the assembled media for UFC 182, Cerrone says his time will come.
But he won't stay idle until it does.
"Who? When? I don't give a shit who. I just want to keep going. (Will I) beat Myles, get in the ring and be like 'Dana give me the belt I want the belt!' Well Dos Anjos is fighting for the belt -- who knows when that fight's going to happen? Will I sit and wait? Absolutely not."
For Cerrone, the key to having fun is staying busy, whether it's taking four fights a year inside the cage, or his extreme sports lifestyle outside the cage.
"The higher you get up the pyramid, the harder it is to get those fights. My coaches and my training partners we just always stay active wake boarding, rock climbing. I'm always ready. I don't like go and sit, drink beer and get fat. I drink beer and play hard."
Cerrone will definitely get to "play hard" inside the Octagon on Jan. 3 in Las Vegas. Video footage of his interview is below, and UFC 182 fight predictions are HERE.
MMAmania.com will have coverage of UFC 182 all week long HERE.