At UFC 145 MacDonald Can Not Clown Around With Mills

By Raphael Garcia

It may be hard for some to imagine being just 22 years old, but having a lot to lose. However, Rory “Ares” MacDonald is in just a position as he prepares to take to the Octagon at UFC 145. Just the 5th fight into his UFC career, MacDonald finds himself under a lot of pressure due to what people have come to expect from the young Canadian.

You will have to go back to UFC 115 in order to understand where all this “hype” surrounding Macdonald first came together. Just one fight into his Octagon run, MacDonald was placed against tough veteran and former champion Carlos Condit. In a bout in which many people believed the then 19-year old professional fighter would surely be outclassed by Condit, MacDonald did much more than prove everyone wrong. For more than 14 minutes MacDonald was able to do what he wanted against Condit, and was well on his way to victory. This was until Condit was able to snatch victory from his hands, and close the bout with just seven seconds left.

Since that come from behind victory, Condit has gone on to become the interim welterweight champion, and is preparing for the biggest bout of his career against returning champion Georges St. Pierre. MacDonald, on the other hand, has taken it upon himself to stay an important name in the welterweight division, as he dominated two other highly experienced fighters in Nate Diaz and Mike Pyle in 2011. Injuries pulled him out of a planned bout earlier this year, but MacDonald will make 2012 debut against relatively unknown Che Mills, which has the potential to be a “trap fight,” if there ever was one.

While it may be just due to the fact that he is from the same country as St. Pierre, MacDonald has had to deal with comparisons to “Rush” since his explosion onto the MMA scene. Whether you think those comparisons are on base or not, it’s hard not to wonder just how great a fighter of MacDonald’s pedigree can become. His professional career started at 16 years of age; when many of us are worried about asking a girl to the movies, MacDonald was learning how to survive when locked into the cage opposite a grown man. It was quite the proving ground for developing the kind of young prospect that is rarely seen in professional sports.

14-4 Mills is planning on stopping the snowball that has surrounded MacDonald since that bout with Condit. Since the announcement of this fight, media writers and fans alike have wondered why MacDonald was placed against a relative unknown, but the same could have been said when Condit was pit against MacDonald in 2010. At that time MacDonald was one fight into his UFC career, and look how that bout turned out.

A victory at UFC 145 would do much more for Mills than for MacDonald. 2012 could very well be the start of the run that places MacDonald at the top of the welterweight heap, but this is exactly the type of bout that can catch a fighter off guard and send him plummeting back down the ranks. “Ares” needs not only to win, but to win big in this bout in order to maintain the momentum he has built up to this point in his career. Look at how Phil Davis’s “lackluster” performance against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira garnered him much more criticism due to an expectation that he was headed towards a showdown against Jon Jones. MacDonald is placed in a very similar situation with this fight. If he wins, then it’s ho-hum because that is expected, but a loss could hinder his career for years to come.

Rory MacDonald may be the top young prospect in mixed martial arts to keep your eye on. It will be interesting to see how he performs in a bout that he is supposed to win at UFC 145. Che Mills isn’t looking to play the stepping stone, and he can walk out of the event with one of the biggest underdog victories this year.