UFC 274: Joe Lauzon Promises “We Will Try To Murder Each Other On Saturday”

Phoenix, AZ – Coming off a lay-off of over two years UFC lightweight Joe Lauzon returns to action at UFC 274 on Saturday night against a fellow MMA legend in Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone.

“It’s real. I just saw Donald out there, Cowboy. I’m glad to be back. It’s a weird feeling when you’re being the fighter versus when you’re coaching helping out everyone else. The nerves…it’s different. I don’t know if it’s necessarily more intense, but it’s just different. Maybe a little less intense. I think when it’s my fight I have some influence on what’s going to happen. Coaching’s kind of like ahhh I hope he does this, I hope he does that. It’s different,” Lauzon told reporters on Wednesday.

Lauzon mentioned running into Cerrone in the fighter hotel, but there was no animosity between the MMA vets.

“We’ve both been doing it so long I don’t think it’s going to change anything. He was like ‘Oh is your family coming out’, I asked him about his. It’s just all good. We’re friendly, but I promise we will try to murder each other on Saturday,” Lauzon said.

Lauzon has been in the UFC since 2006. His opponent since 2011, but is the Cowboy entering the octagon on Saturday night a shell of himself?

“He’s done great. I understand 100% why someone would want to fight up a weight class. I don’t think that he was…..he wasn’t the best size for welterweight right? He’s a big lightweight, but he’s a smaller welterweight. So I understand that, and he fought so many killers! So he came up short in a lot of his last fights, but he fought killer, after killer, after killer. So of course those are all super hard fights,” Lauzon said.

“I think that you’re going to remember people for their strengths and not their weaknesses sometimes. You don’t remember the bad performances. You’re going to remember the good performances. That’s who you need to train for. We didn’t train for the worst Cowboy. We trained for the best Cowboy.”

Lauzon is known for putting on exciting fights which in turn has earned him a lot of bonuses during his UFC career. Even on a stacked UFC 274 card Lauzon feels that he and Cowboy can put on another bonus-deserving performance.

“I’m focused on getting the win, but there’s a good chance someone’s getting a bonus off the other. Maybe it’s fight of the night, maybe it’s performance bonus. We both have a lot of bonuses for good reason. We try to murder each other,” Lauzon said.

“Very, very good chance of a bonus for this fight.”

Joe Lauzon faces Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone at UFC 274 on Saturday, April 7, 2022 at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Check out Lauzon’s full media day scrum above. More coverage can be found below.