One of the brightest young stars emerging in the UFC at this moment in time is 22 year-old welterweight fighter Rory MacDonald, and the division’s current champion and pound-for-pound great Georges St.Pierre has tipped him to one day wear the belt he currently holds.
Everyone has had a chance to see MacDonald’s obvious potential in his four fight UFC career so far – notching up big wins over the likes of Nate Diaz and Mike Pyle along the way, while also getting to within 10 seconds of beating current interim champ Carlos Condit in only his second fight for the promotion, but GSP knows him better than most as he trains with him in Canada at the TriStar gym.
And that insider knowledge has lead him to the conclusion that the man who used to fight under the monicker, ‘The Waterboy’, but recently upgraded to ‘Ares’ (the Greek God Of War), has the ability to ascend to the very summit of the welterweight division.
“I know one day [MacDonald] is going to be world champion,” St.Pierre emphatically told reporters at the media workouts for UFC 145 as he prepared to help corner the young fighter in his co-main event fight against Che Mills on Saturday night.
Despite the fact that he currently holds the world title GSP has ruled out the possibility of fighting him though.
“I’m not interested in fighting him,” he declared. “There are a lot of welterweights, I don’t think we need to do it now. In two years, who knows? I may go to middleweight. Who knows what’s going to happen?”
Coincidentally this weekend’s event will be headlined by two fighter’s who were once training partners who swore never to fight, a pact that crumbled after the younger man indicated that he would be open to the fight if he was asked.
If MacDonald continues on his current winning streak, beginning at the weekend against Mills, then it’ll be interesting to see whether this would test the two men’s resolve not to compete against each other, or conversely whether it could be the catalyst for St.Pierre to finally make a long-awaited move up to 185lbs.
