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UFC 145 Results: Rory MacDonald Has All the Tools to Be a UFC Champion

Prepare for an earth-shattering statement that you have definitely not seen, heard or read in the past 24 hours: Rory MacDonald has all the tools to become a UFC champion. Shocked? Obviously. Going into his fight with Che Mills at UFC 145, most people …

Prepare for an earth-shattering statement that you have definitely not seen, heard or read in the past 24 hours: Rory MacDonald has all the tools to become a UFC champion.

Shocked?

Obviously.

Going into his fight with Che Mills at UFC 145, most people expected that MacDonald would dispose of the slick Brit without much difficulty. He was, after all, the heir apparent to Georges St-Pierre as the next big Canadian welterweight sensation.

When fight time came, he did absolutely nothing to indicate that the hype wasn’t earned.

By the midpoint of the second round, he’d smashed Mills so badly that his face was hardly recognizable, rag-dolling his man to the mat and then pounding away with vicious shots from all ground positions to secure the stoppage.

So no, it isn’t original or creative to say that Rory MacDonald has all the tools to be a UFC champion. But boy does it look to be true.

His wrestling, for a man who never wrestled at a high level in the traditional sense, is always on point in his fights. Once he gets things where he wants, his grappling and positional control is even more impressive.

His striking, though not yet elite, is enough to get by until he can impose his will on opponents.

His strength, for a man of only 22, is absolutely off the charts.

The mix of all these tools is proving to be incredibly hard for fighteres to match when they meet MacDonald. Be they a veteran, an up-and-comer, or even an eventual champion, no one has truly had an answer for the Tristar product.

Many people said the Mills fight was little more than a chance for the UFC to showcase its other elite prospect on a card headlined by the best one they have on the roster in Jon Jones. Everyone expected MacDonald to win, and win violently, and that’s what he did. Mills was outgunned from the start, and the fight unfolded accordingly.

MacDonald went out and did his part. He mixed it up on the feet a little bit, then got the fight where he wanted and did damage at a pace that even the most hardened MMA fans had to be impressed by. To put it mildly, ground-and-pound with that much force and accuracy is not something often seen.

At this stage in his career, Rory MacDonald is still a prospect. However with each passing appearance, he looks bigger, stronger, meaner and better. Considering that, there may be no one in the promotion with a better chance of one day becoming a UFC champion.

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UFC 145 Results: 5 Things Stephen Thompson Needs to Improve on

The most significant problem Steven Thompson had with Matt Brown was how much damage he sustained once the fight hit the ground. Brown would fold him up and rain down punches and elbows, most of which “Wonderboy” seemed content enough to ta…

For a gatekeeper like Brown, in no way known for his particularly excellent ground-and-pound, to do so much damage with very little pushback is indicative of an area that needs work.

Thompson needs to learn the best ways to protect himself on the ground, or it’ll only be more unpleasant the further he goes up the ladder.

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UFC 145 Results: Jon Jones and the 7 Most Confident Fighters in MMA

It’s a fine line between confident and cocky, and without some mix of the two, it’s a tough road to becoming a champion. Making it in combat sports at all is actually pretty tough, in fact. Light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is leadin…

It’s a fine line between confident and cocky, and without some mix of the two, it’s a tough road to becoming a champion. Making it in combat sports at all is actually pretty tough, in fact.

Light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is leading the charge in terms of confidence, so much so that words like arrogance regularly make their way into the conversations about the champ. Even so, he’s not alone.

Here are some other guys known around the UFC for bringing confidence to the table.

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UFC on FUEL 2: Can Thiago Silva Repair His Image?

After a wait that has spanned across almost three calendar years, Saturday night in Sweden will mark the return of one of the most underappreciated light heavyweights in the business. Thiago Silva will look to remind the world just how good he is, perh…

However, a question that many have regarding Silva and his return is whether or not he can rehab his image, as the reason he’s been out of action since the first day of 2011 is a PED test gone awry. No one ever said he wasn’t a bad dude, but he hurt his credibility in a big way when he tried to pawn off animal urine as his own to fool an athletic commission.

There’s no better way to erase those memories and silence those doubters than to collect a win against a man that many are pegging to be the next threat to Jon Jones at the top of the division.

Looking at Silva, he’s a man that many people have written off or outright forgotten about at 205. The Gustafsson fight will be just his sixth since 2008, and as he’s gone only 2-2-1 in that time people tend to overlook the Brazilian as a viable contender.

However, his two losses are to men who have held UFC gold (they’re also the only defeats he’s suffered as a pro), and the no-contest was a fight he won handily before his drug test spoiled it.

Objectively, Silva is much better than people realize. He just rarely gets to show it.

That could change in Sweden.

Like it or not, the MMA community has shown to have a short memory when it comes to PED users making a return to the cage. For better or worse, most guys who provide commissioners with nuclear pee at some point in their career are forgiven if they can perform in the cage.

Names like Stephan Bonnar and Sean Sherk are usually discussed for their fighting successes instead of their failed tests, while a guy like Josh Barnett still gets ribbed for his PED past but is enjoying fan support and encouragement to return to the UFC.

Silva will hope for the same.

It won’t be easy, though, as Gustafsson is an incredible athlete who is entering his prime, fighting with the added fire of a man headlining in front of a hometown crowd that’s never seen a UFC event in their country.

Considering that, perhaps even a spirited loss might be enough for Silva to erase the memories of the past couple of years.

Either way, Silva is back. In a division that’s deceptively thin outside of the top five, that’s a good thing. He’s a warrior with a kill-or-be-killed mentality, and past mistakes notwithstanding, there’s always room for that type of guy in MMA.

The road to reparation begins Saturday night for him. Only he can decide how he travels it.

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UFC: Do Fans Still Want GSP as Their Champion?

Nice guys finish last. You hear it constantly. Any jerk you run into on the street will tell you they’re that way because nice guys finish last. It’s become a mantra for anyone a little rough around the edges, a way that they can justify ru…

Nice guys finish last.

You hear it constantly. Any jerk you run into on the street will tell you they’re that way because nice guys finish last. It’s become a mantra for anyone a little rough around the edges, a way that they can justify rubbing people the wrong way.

For a long time, it was hard to argue. Look anywhere, from the front office of a Fortune 500 corporation to the management of the McDonald’s around the corner, and chances are that the guy at the top of the heap is a bit of a jerk. Regardless of the context, the guy who isn’t there to make friends is the guy getting ahead.

Then, along came Georges St-Pierre.

Polite, courteous, friendly, willing to give his time to fans and media. When he won the UFC welterweight championship the promotion was almost doing celebratory back flips right alongside him in the cage.

They had their poster boy.

And, over time, St-Pierre helped to remove the stigma that was associated with martial artists who enter a cage to display their talents. This little French Canadian, so kind and mild-mannered, was far more athlete than warrior, and people took notice.

They began to realize that MMA is more sport than spectacle.

Even mainstream companies like Under Armour and Gatorade took notice, and St-Pierre became the face of brands advertising from Times Square to Tokyo.

However it seems as though this momentum—unbeaten in five years, acting as an ambassador for the sport, becoming the biggest star in Canada—has caused people to rethink St-Pierre as a champion.

He’s regularly criticized for being boring, fighting not to lose, and being far too nice for a sport that is still, at its core, about hurting people.

Funny how times change.

Upon his suffering a knee injury prior to UFC 143, people were nearly jumping for joy that GSP would be replaced by Carlos Condit in a fight with Nick Diaz.

The idea of two known killers going toe-to-toe was too much for fans to pass up, far more interesting than the same guy winning the same style of fight in the same boring fashion.

It’s a combination of fascinating and unfortunate for a champion who has given so much to the sport and the promotion.

St-Pierre rose to prominence with a thrashing of Jason “Mayhem” Miller at UFC 52, the same night that Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell completed the landmark first season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Once he beat BJ Penn and Matt Hughes, the latter to become champion, he truly became the first welterweight star of the TUF generation.

From there he went 9-1, became a pound-for-pound great, and may now be the greatest 170-pound champion in UFC history.

But people are tired of him. People have seen enough of his smiles, his jabs and double legs and his claims he’s trying to finish fights even when he’s not.

The fact of the matter is that you can only be the nice guy for so long. You can only get away with a squeaky-clean image and a boatload of endorsement money before people start to look elsewhere for entertainment.

The likes of Condit and Diaz certainly don’t have the mainstream appeal of St-Pierre—few in MMA, if any, do—but fans who tune in regularly would rather watch those guys fight any day of the week. They’d rather see them with the title too, if for no other reason than to see someone different holding the gold.

The most praise St-Pierre has gotten since he beat Matt Serra came when he said he’d vacate his title to fight Diaz because he has such a strong dislike for the man. It showed that GSP is human, that under the manicured, managed image is a guy who doesn’t like to be pushed or taunted any more than anyone else does.

Was the favourable response because people were happy he’d possibly vacate the title, or because people liked that he was showing some edge? Does it matter?

The reality is that GSP needs a little more of this, and a little less nice guy. The endorsements and video games covers will still be there if he tells a controversial truth from time to time. He’ll even secure more fans in the process.

Until he realizes that though, he’s always going be the man holding the gold while someone else is the people’s champion.

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MMA: Was Zuffa’s Purchase of Strikeforce a Mistake?

A year ago Zuffa LLC dropped an absolute bomb on the MMA world: they were buying Strikeforce, the biggest competitor to their crown jewel, the UFC. No one saw it coming, and aside from some underwhelming explanations about competition and others trying…

A year ago Zuffa LLC dropped an absolute bomb on the MMA world: they were buying Strikeforce, the biggest competitor to their crown jewel, the UFC.

No one saw it coming, and aside from some underwhelming explanations about competition and others trying to move in and buy the promotion, there was never a huge amount of reasoning given for the purchase.

It more or less amounted to “we do MMA, we wanted Strikeforce, we bought it.” People in the know likely understand that attitude to greater depths than the average fan sitting on his couch, but at this stage of the game it matters far less than it did a year ago.

Zuffa owns Strikeforce. That’s where we are.

But where are they? It’s impossible to know for sure, but the hints are there to suggest that they’d rather not own Strikeforce, but it’s the hand they’ve been dealt (dealt to themselves?) and it’s the one they’re going to play.

The relationship with Showtime, broadcaster of Strikeforce, was incredibly rocky from Zuffa’s perspective. When they made the purchase, Dana White openly hated the suits running the cable subscriber and wasn’t shy about sharing it. It was getting better for a while, but White wanted more control of production and Showtime wanted him at arm’s length.

That’s not a bad thing, because it’s inevitable the charge would be to move Strikeforce closer to the UFC in terms of look and feel, and that’s not a good idea for a promotion that is still—at least technically—standing on its own two feet.

Still, it’s a headache that White and his Zuffa partners didn’t need. They’ve got the UFC to run, right in the middle of it’s biggest year since 2005, no less.

There have been other headaches as well, some far greater than the given example.

The Strikeforce Grand Prix was a veritable circus of the occult, with guys leaving mid-tournament to join the UFC, falling to injury or being completely debunked as the stars people thought they were.

A messy, hostile debate with Golden Glory Fight Team led to some of the more marketable stars in both Strikeforce and the UFC being released. Alistair Overeem and Marloes Coenen were the biggest names on the chopping block, and Overeem only rejoined Zuffa after leaving his team. Coenen is still without meaningful work and hasn’t fought since.

It all stemmed from Strikeforce, and while it wasn’t the biggest issue in MMA history, it was a headache that otherwise would have been avoided.

It’s not all bad, however. Perhaps important enough to trump the consistent, minor pains caused by running Strikeforce, is the influx of talent to the UFC from it’s adopted sister.

Overeem and Fabricio Werdum led a charge of heavyweights jumping ship, while Nick Diaz did the same at welterweight. It’s expected that Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier will be en route soon as well, which will only pad the heavyweight class further.

However, even that ability to move guys back and forth may be cause for headaches. Many have asked why Diaz or this collection of heavyweights have made the jump, while guys like Gil Melendez and Tim Kennedy are left jonesing for regular fights in the stripped down Strikeforce.

There’s tremendous pressure from fans, a lack of viable options for matchmaking with the top-end talent of Strikeforce, and no one wants to leave the UFC to go over there and fight in an event they likely see as second rate.

Again with the headaches.

There’s no question that the Strikeforce acquisition has provided plenty of problems for Zuffa. Probably more than they even expected. Looking at some of the more prominent issues here—only listing what we know of, and even then it’s not the whole list—it’s clear there are many days Dana and the Fertittas wish they’d just let someone else take the thing.

But you know what? That doesn’t make it a mistake.

The whole goal when Zuffa bought the UFC was to create a global sport, a brand where all of the best martial artists in the world are in one place. With that goal as a sole focus, there’s no way purchasing Strikeforce can qualify as a mistake, because the purchase brought them a huge step closer to making that dream a reality.

Nobody said it was easy, and nobody needed to. Zuffa knows better than anyone how tough the MMA business is. Problems and concerns be damned, there’s no one in the world better equipped to make it work with Strikeforce.

For anyone else, by now the purchase would have been confirmed as a mistake. For Zuffa, it’s just one more mountain to climb.

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