(Video via MMA Fighting)
There was a period of time, back around 2004-2005, when folks spoke about a young welterweight named Georges St. Pierre as if it were inevitable that the Canadian would one day be the welterweight champion of the world. These days, the same type of hype surrounds St. Pierre’s training partner Rory MacDonald.
Rory will be fighting BJ Penn next on the UFC on Fox 5 card but is so good and so young that he constantly has to answer the question of whether or not he’d fight his Tri-Star stablemate St. Pierre.
Before last week’s UFC 154 in his home town of Montreal, MacDonald answered questions from fans. If you hear past Rory’s dry delivery and watch the whole session (above) you’ll be treated to an earnest sounding kid, both full of confidence and hard on himself (for example, he refers to his loss to Condit as getting his ass kicked instead of losing at the very end of a fight he was previously winning).
MacDonald believes with certainty that he will become the welterweight champion one day but says that “me and Georges are not going to fight.”
Their friendship and his ability to stay training at his gym make it an impossibility for Rory. “We are friends and we are very close training partners…I’m not in it for the money..I don’t want to sacrifice a friendship and my spot training at Tri Star.”
MacDonald also said that, though he has no trouble making the welterweight limit, he will fight at middleweight eventually. No doubt [I] will fight at middleweight at some point in my career.”
Rory also talks about BJ Penn’s hard on for TriStar gym fighters, how he’s fine with BJ comes in fat, the randomness of Penn calling him out and the guy he wants to fight after the Hilo kid.