Donald Cerrone put on a great showing against Jeremy Stephens at UFC on Fuel TV 3, battering the tough Stephens on the feet over the course of three rounds. What makes the performance even more impressive is the information Cerrone shared with Sherdog's Savage Dog Show.

It appears that Cerrone was dealing with a rather nasty intestinal issue heading into the fight.

First, the history of the injury:

"I was racing some motocross and I wrecked real bad and just kind of spilled my guts out," Cerrone said. "They had to take a bunch of my intestines and part of my stomach."

Cerrone went on to explain how he re-aggravated the injury before the fight:

"What happened this time is, my stomach basically rolled around the intestine. Man, talk about pain. It was like someone was stabbing me. Oh, it was so brutal. I had to go to the ER, and basically they had to empty all of my intestines out and then rush water down my stomach and try to get it to unspin, kind of like a garden hose. If you have a kink in the hose, you run water and the pressure will cause it to unravel. It worked, so thank God."

Cerrone said that he was urged by coach Greg Jackson to back out of the fight, a move that would have been extremely understandable, but Donald felt that two weeks was enough time to recover.

Cerrone's desire to fight a very busy schedule, willingness to take fights on shorter notice than most and now his fighting through a pretty awful sounding injury has to put him in good standing with the UFC. I also have to be honest and admit that I had no idea that he'd have the level of success he had coming over to the UFC after the WEC was absorbed.

Cerrone may not win any UFC titles, but he's going to be a top ten fighter for a long time.