If you’re not on the Rory MacDonald bandwagon yet, I honestly have no idea what you’re waiting for.
MacDonald is the next great phenom of the sport. Maybe all of sports.
That may seem like a slightly breathless assessment. Perhaps it is. But there’s something very specific to MacDonald and his situation that sets him apart from the Bryce Harpers and LeBron Jameses and all those, you know, run-of-the-mill phenoms we read about on the ticker tape.
First, though, a few facts.
Rory MacDonald, a native of British Columbia, Canada, is 22 years old. He is 13-1 in his professional MMA career, and 4-1 inside the UFC Octagon. His only defeat came at the hands of current UFC interim welterweight champion, Carlos Condit, by way of a TKO with seven seconds remaining in the third and final round. Many believe, to this day, that had those last few grains of sand drained out of the hourglass, MacDonald would have done enough to win a decision.
In any case, the performance garnered Fight of the Night honors from the UFC. At the time, MacDonald was not yet old enough to order a beer in the lower 48.
In baseball parlance, Rory MacDonald is a five-tool player. His takedowns are very difficult to stop. He hits with speed, accuracy and power, both on the feet and on the ground. He has long reach and does a good job of mixing punches, kicks, elbows and knees. He clearly knows how to pull off a submission. He has a nose to finish.
Perhaps the most unusual element of all this, however, is how unsurprising it was to close observers of the sport. How many 20-year-olds would get a bona fide contender in their second fight in the UFC? MacDonald did. Here was a guy who debuted in the sport at age 16, who won his first four fights in the first round and who donned his first title belt at age 18 (in the Canadian King of the Cage promotion).
In his 13 wins, only one time has he gone to decision, and that was against current lightweight challenger Nate Diaz. In his other 12 wins, he has six wins by KO or TKO, and six wins by submission. Here was a guy who, again at age 20, was accepted into the vaunted Tristar Gym, home to UFC welterweight champion and best-fighter-on-the-planet-not-named-Anderson-Silva Georges St-Pierre, not to mention about a dozen other UFC veterans.
And if that’s not enough, there’s this: When former UFC welterweight and lightweight champion B.J. Penn “retired” in 2011, it seemed no one could entice him back to the cage. Welterweight contender and noted heel, Josh Koscheck, laid down the gauntlet; he was rebuffed. Strikeforce lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez pulled Penn’s card; no response. But when MacDonald came calling, it was simply too much for Penn to pass up.
Finally, there are the intangibles. MacDonald is, at least outwardly, a humble figure. He respects fans and other fighters. He lives and breathes the martial arts ethos that quietly makes MMA the most honorable sport in existence.
OK, I hear you say. He’s good. He’s young. He’s got star quality. I get it. But what sets him apart from other supreme sporting prodigies?
It’s all a matter of circumstance. Let me explain. Imagine that basketball is still a new game. Dunking is a novelty. The jury is still out on the jump shot. Shorts are exercises in immodesty. And there are no combo positions. The center is the center, the point guard is the point guard and so on.
Now introduce Magic Johnson into that mix. A guy who could do it all. That gives you some sense of the ceiling on Rory MacDonald.
As most people know, mixed martial arts is an evolving sport. These days, you have to be good at everything, and most of the top fighters are. Nevertheless, pretty much every fighter is still specialized at the core. The average UFC contractor is a kickboxer who learned Jiu-Jitsu, a Judo player who picked up Muay Thai, a wrestler who one day discovered thunder in his fists.
Not so with Rory MacDonald.
Remember that stat from his victories? Six knockouts, six submissions. That’s balance. He moves seamlessly from one phase of the fight to the next, because in his brain and his muscles, they are all part of one whole.
Again, he’s not the first well-rounded mixed martial artist. But his foundation is not one base with a series of graft-ons. In other words, MacDonald’s true discipline is mixed martial arts. As such, compared with fighters of the old garde, he has relatively few weaknesses.
That’s not to say he has no weaknesses at all.
In fact, weakness itself is a weakness; the rangy MacDonald could get overpowered by heftier welterweights. His stand-up striking game is also not on par with the top strikers in the division. His submission defense is a bit of a question mark.
Still, given the sport’s newness, MacDonald is at the vanguard of the first generation to grow up with something called MMA. In this older interview, MacDonald speaks to that. When asked about his fighting pedigree, he answers, “Basically just mixed martial arts. I’ve been training…since I was 14 and the gym is centered around MMA competition.”
Along with other young bucks like Jon Jones, Rory MacDonald appears poised to paint a new picture of what a great MMA fighter looks like. It doesn’t appear to be a matter of “if” with this young man, but “when.” And even at such a tender age, it could come sooner rather than later.
Get on the bandwagon while you still can.
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