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‘Cowboy’ Cerrone blasts Jackson Wink ‘puppy mill’; Mike Winkeljohn responds (updated)

Story updated at 8:49 p.m. ET to reflect comments from Jackson Wink co-owner Mike Winkeljohn.

UFC veteran Donald Cerrone has lashed out at Jackson Wink MMA Academy, bringing a long-simmering conflict with its owners into public view.

In an extended interview today on the JRE MMA Show, Cerrone (33-11 MMA, 20-8 UFC) laid bare his complaints about his longtime gym, accusing owners Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn of gross mismanagement.

The conflict came to a head when Cerrone said he was essentially pushed out of the gym when Winkeljohn chose to train his upcoming opponent, Mike Perry (12-3 MMA, 5-3 UFC), for a bout at UFC Fight Night 139.

“(Winkeljohn called me and) says, ‘You know what, I thought about it and if we don’t have Perry, then I don’t get paid, and I need to get paid for this,’” Cerrone said. “Basically tells me I’m no longer welcome in the gym.”

Winkeljohn disputed the notion that Cerrone is no longer welcome, but he defended his decision to work with Perry. He claimed Cerrone’s behavior since starting his own gym, the BMF Ranch, has caused a deep rift at Jackson Wink.

Winkeljohn said Cerrone has for several years drawn training partners and coaches away from the gym to train at BMF, but hasn’t contributed to Jackson Wink as a consistent team presence.

“Loyalty is two sides,” the coach told MMAjunkie. “‘Cowboy’ is not loyal to anybody in the gym. He’s on his own. He does his own thing. He has not, from what I can remember in the last 10 years, ever helped anybody out with their own camp. He’s as narcissistic as they come.”

Cerrone, who began training at Jackson Wink in 2007, worked with Perry when he joined Jackson Wink earlier this year. But he was offended when Perry called him out for the November event, placing a wedge between available training partners and coaches. He’d asked that Perry not be allowed to train at Jackson Wink for the fight and was angered to hear Winkeljohn’s decision over the phone.

“(They) didn’t have the (expletive) balls or the backbone to say it to my (expletive) face when I was right there with them,” Cerrone said.

Cerrone said Jackson approached him separately and offered to train him at the ranch, a facility he said he started when Jackson Wink began to go downhill. Over the years, he said Jackson had regularly made the trip to the ranch to personally coach him.

But in this case, Cerrone saw a blatant conflict of interest.

“He’s like, ‘Yeah, we’ll come to the ranch and sort this out,’” Cerrone said of Jackson. “I’m like what the (expletive) are you talking about? You tell me I can’t come into the Jackson Wink gym, but you’re going to back door and come to my house, and we’re going to train to fight me while Perry’s at the gym.

“You see everything he does, and then you come train me? Not to mention you’re holding classes and he’s watching. You might not be training him to beat me, but there’s a lot of people there that have trained with me for (expletive) years.”

Winkeljohn said he hasn’t worked with Cerrone since 2010. He said the issue with Perry is merely a catalyst for issues that have been festering for years.

“I put up with it for a long time because Greg has the biggest heart in the world,” Winkeljohn said. “He’s like my little brother. But at the same time, it was causing division.

“And by the way, of the teams that went out there, I think it’s 100 percent of people lost, because ‘Cowboy’ wants to do what he wants to do on his timeframe, and it didn’t work for the fighters that train out there at the gym. So that made our percentage look bad, because we lost a lot of fights because of it.

“If Perry wasn’t at my gym, I’m so much happier now that I got rid of the division in my gym (and) somebody that doesn’t want to help others and wants to do his own thing. It has absolutely nothing to do with Perry, and everything to do with Perry.”

Despite Cerrone’s disagreement with Jackson, he indicated the veteran coach hasn’t been deeply involved in the gym’s operation over the past several years. He lays most of the blame for the current impasse with Winkeljohn, whom he said “drove that place in the ground,” turning the gym into “puppy mill” that values money over loyalty.

Cerrone claims Winkeljohn’s influence has changed the culture at the facility, changing it from an exclusive family to an open mat where anyone who pays the daily usage fee can spar with world-class talent.

With pre-fight injuries up and the team’s winning percentage down, Cerrone said several fighters have started to look for the exit.

“Not only can someone just ring the doorbell and train, but if you’re a coach, you can just coach the class,” he said. “It’s that asinine. I see a new striking coach, wrestling coach, or jiu-jitsu coach in there twice a week probably.”

Winkeljohn counters by citing Jackson Wink’s track record of shaping UFC champs including Jon Jones, Holly Holm and Carlos Condit.

“Those are some tough puppies,” he said.

Later, Winkeljohn added: “If I suck so bad, he absolutely would want to fight Perry. I hope he doesn’t back out of the fight now because I suck so bad.”

“Cowboy” took specific aim at wrestling coach Chad Smith, whom he accused of being fired from a previous coaching position for peddling steroids.

“That’s our wresling coach,” he said of Smith. “He’s terrible. He’s (expletive) god awful terrible. He watches videos on YouTube and tries to teach people things that don’t even (expletive) work.”

Smith could not be reached for comment; a call to Jackson Wink Academy was not immediately returned. Winkeljohn said Smith has been instrumental to the team, though he currently only works in a part-time capacity.

“I’m going to defend Chad Smith because our winning percentage was high when he moved here,” he said.

After more than a decade with Jackson Wink, Cerrone feels betrayed by the way the situation was handled, and he said owners’ loyalty is at an all-time low. As to a possible solution to the issue, he’s at a loss.

“I wish I had the answer for that, because I’m not running a gym,” Cerrone said. “Me showing up to a gym every single day would wear me out. But you should have an infrastructure set in place, especially if you were the greatest at one time.”

Winkeljohn, though, simply asks Cerrone to look at the situation from his perspective.

“What would ‘Cowboy’ do if it was his gym? Well let me think,” he said. “If I wanted to go into his gym use it when I wanted to, not be respectful, not help others, pull people and coaches away from the gym, and do things for myself, and then tell the new gym not to work with this person they’ve been working with because it’s all about yourself, what would ‘Cowboy’ do? I know what ‘Cowboy’ would do: The same thing I did, and that was basically, ‘Sorry kids, (expletive) that.’”

For more on UFC Fight Night 139, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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