Rory MacDonald – “The Waterboy” Grows Up at BetLM

Seven sec­onds. Ahead on two of the three judges’ score­cards in his UFC 115 bout against Car­los Con­dit last June, that’s all Rory Mac­Don­ald needed to walk away with the biggest vic­tory of his career against a for­mer WEC champion.

But as ref­eree Kevin Dor­nan pulled Con­dit off the soon to be 21 year old after a bar­rage of pun­ish­ing blows, a stun­ning vic­tory mor­phed into a crush­ing defeat. Seven sec­onds remained in the third and final round, and even an enor­mous amount of respect from his oppo­nent, the media, and the fans, and a post-fight bonus check for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Fight of the Night couldn’t soothe him.

Even today, nearly a year removed from the bout, he looks back and calls the after­math “a dark time”, but the one thing he won’t do is make excuses or wish that the Dor­nan gave him those seven pre­cious seconds.

“Absolutely not.” said Mac­Don­ald. “I don’t think that what­so­ever. Car­los did a great job in the last round and he did a lot of dam­age, more dam­age than I did to him in the whole fight. So he deserves the win he got. I wasn’t put away, but the ref­eree stepped in for my safety, which I appre­ci­ate. But I wasn’t gonna give up.”

That grit and deter­mi­na­tion may be the last­ing image of the bout, even more than Condit’s come from behind vic­tory. In 10 pre­vi­ous pro bouts, includ­ing a UFC debut win over Mike Guy­mon in Jan­u­ary of 2010, Mac­Don­ald was barely tested as he lived up to all the hype he received as the top prospect to come out of Canada since cur­rent wel­ter­weight cham­pion Georges St-Pierre. And if you wanted to call him a future Michael Jor­dan of MMA, few bat­ted an eye at such a lofty proclamation.

But with­out the Detroit Pis­tons to teach them the unwrit­ten rules of cham­pi­onship level bas­ket­ball, per­haps Jor­dan and his Chicago Bulls don’t go on to win mul­ti­ple NBA titles. With­out Matt Hughes arm­bar­ring him in their first fight, maybe St-Pierre doesn’t go on to great­ness at 170 pounds. And with­out Car­los Con­dit, Rory Mac­Don­ald may not have the intan­gi­bles he now pos­sesses today.

“Every­one was right about say­ing that expe­ri­ence was gonna play a fac­tor, because it really did,” said Mac­Don­ald. “He out­smarted me in the last round. I came out guns blaz­ing, try­ing to be excit­ing, and I’m always gonna be that excit­ing fighter, but I learned how to be smarter now. Before, it was all action, like a race to the fin­ish, and I made some cru­cial mis­takes in the last round, and it was hard for me to deal with because it set me back in my career. I was really think­ing that that was my time, but in the end, it’s a bless­ing in dis­guise. I was hurt by it at first, but I’m com­ing back much stronger and much smarter.”

And more dan­ger­ous. Now Mac­Don­ald knows that he can push past fatigue against a world-class oppo­nent and still bat­tle on with the heart every fighter hopes he has, but doesn’t know if he pos­sesses until it’s tested. And though only 21, his reac­tion to the loss wasn’t one of ‘okay, it was just a bad day at the office.’ It hit him harder than any­thing Con­dit threw at him, prov­ing once again that in his chest beats the heart of a fighter.

“I took a lit­tle bit of time away because it was a hard loss for me, but I’m okay now, I’ve come a long way since then, I had a knee surgery, so I’ve had a lot of time to work on my game with my new team out here in Mon­treal, so I’m very excited to come back.”

This Sat­ur­day night, Mac­Don­ald returns to the Octa­gon to face fel­low ris­ing star Nate Diaz on the UFC 129 card in Toronto’s Rogers Cen­tre. It’s a bout that has Fight of the Night writ­ten all over it, and one that is piv­otal for both fight­ers since they’re look­ing to rebound from recent defeats. So to get ready, the British Colum­bia native made the trek to Que­bec to train with the gang at the Tris­tar Gym. To hang with that group, which includes fel­low 129 par­tic­i­pants GSP, Ivan Men­ji­var, Sean Pier­son, John Makdessi, and Yves Jabouin, you have to be on top of your game at all time, and being around some of the accom­plished vet­er­ans that call the gym home has done won­ders for MacDonald’s game in and out of the Octagon.

“I talk with the more expe­ri­enced guys a lot to help me with deci­sions I have to make in my career,” he said. “They give me advice as to what I need to look out for, what to look for­ward to, how to han­dle cer­tain sit­u­a­tions and advice to han­dle myself in the ring too. It’s an extra bonus, not just to be able to train with these guys, but the things they can teach me outside.”

Diaz has the same kind of squad behind him back home in Cal­i­for­nia, but while the two share sim­i­lar­i­ties when it comes to youth, tal­ent, and qual­ity team­mates, the kid from Stock­ton is never afraid to up the ante when it comes to games­man­ship both before and dur­ing a fight. But the quiet Mac­Don­ald insists that he isn’t going to play along.

“I don’t really see myself get­ting very hot-headed about it,” he said. “This is what we do for a liv­ing, and it makes no dif­fer­ence to me if he says some­thing to me before or if he doesn’t. There’s no emo­tion at all for me. Some peo­ple need emo­tion to hurt other peo­ple and get them­selves in the right frame of mind for the fight, but if he does, it’s all on his own behalf. I’m not gonna have any­thing to do with that.”

That poker-faced approach is going to play into MacDonald’s per­for­mance in the Octa­gon as well, as he admits that his home­com­ing fight in British Colum­bia against Con­dit over­whelmed him a bit in terms of bring­ing that emo­tion of being home into the fight.

“I was real psy­ched up and emo­tional (against Con­dit), but it’s not gonna play into the fight this time,” he said. “I’ll have one thing in mind the whole time, and that’s look­ing across the cage and fight­ing Nate Diaz, and noth­ing else.”

Diaz will have the same mind­set, just another rea­son why this fight is a must-see. And if you need any more proof, just rewind a bit to April 9th and watch Nate’s brother Nick do his thing in defend­ing his Strike­force wel­ter­weight title against Paul Daley. It was vin­tage Diaz style fight­ing, and Nate is a vir­tual clone of his older sib­ling when it comes to atti­tude, resilience, and well-rounded skills. Not sur­pris­ingly, Mac­Don­ald was watch­ing, and he’s ready.

“The Diaz broth­ers are very tough, durable, and com­posed,” he said. “They might not look phys­i­cally threat­en­ing, but they’re very smart and very relaxed. They have some weapons that a lot of peo­ple don’t have, and I know Nate is a very unortho­dox fighter and he’s very orig­i­nal with his style so I have to be ready for that, and I take him very, very seriously.”

 

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