From the sound of things, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone is happier than ever while preparing for one of the biggest fights of his career as he gets ready to face Conor McGregor in the UFC 246 main event.

As much as he loves fighting, Cerrone admits that returning to welterweight for the fight with McGregor has helped him stay even healthier in the weeks leading up to this mega-event.

The idea for the bout to take place at 170 pounds came from McGregor, but it was welcome news for Cerrone, who has competed at welterweight in the past, but considers himself a more natural lightweight.

“That was Conor’s idea. We were already gearing up, trying to get down towards 155, and he said let’s do it at ’70 and I was like, ‘Done. Okay’,” Cerrone said in his “More than a Cowboy” documentary series on Amazon. “It never mattered to me. Weight never mattered to me either.

“The only problem me fighting when I was up at [170 pounds] are those guys are big. Big, big. I’m like 177 right now, 178, and that’s like eating whatever I want. I think he wants to enjoy the holidays with his family and eat and drink, get in there and have fun, so I don’t blame him. Why not?”

Not going through a rigorous weight cut was welcome news for Cerrone as it just takes one more thing off his plate as he trains for the fight on Jan. 18.

“He just took the edge off,” Cerrone said. “A lot of cutting that weight, making it to fight week is just battling the weight cut, but now we get to go in there and have fun. Oh, man. Thank you!”

While weight cutting hasn’t been a concern with this training camp, Cerrone is still filling his hours in between training sessions with activities that many fighters would deem far too dangerous, especially with an important fight just around the corner.

Cerrone has notoriously engaged in all sorts of outdoor sports and activities that have terrified UFC management in the past out of fear that he might get seriously injured, which in turn could potentially ruin his fight career.

Considering Cerrone once recounted a story where he nearly died in a cave diving accident, their worries might be valid, but he’s never going to stop doing what he loves even if it’s happening just days before his fight.

“I’d be one miserable son of a b**ch if all I had to do was wake up and train,” Cerrone said. “Go to bed, think about training, that would drive me through the roof. When you’re out on those mountain bikes or you’re out playing paintball and we’re shooting the guns and we’re riding the horses, riding the snowmobiles; it’s just a release.

“You just let everything else go and you just focus on that one moment or that thing that you’re doing, then we come back and we train and we keep playing harder.”

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Despite all the risks he’s taking, Cerrone promises that he will show up at UFC 246 ready to take on McGregor in his first fight back in 15 months.

“There are clauses [in my contract] like I can’t ride horses, but I ride horses all the time. There’s a bunch of things in the clause – you can’t ride motorcycles, can’t jump mountain bikes, but I have never not shown up to a fight in my life,” Cerrone explained.

“I’ve never missed weight. I’ve never been injured and not made it. I’ve been injured and still fought, of course. But I’ve never called and said, ‘Oh I can’t make it,’ or you call me with an opponent and [I’ll] say, ‘Man, I just don’t know if that guy’s really going to work for me right now. The answer’s always yes, and we show up and we fight, so I think they just let Cowboy be Cowboy, because I’m f***ing coming no matter what.”

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