UFC welterweight star Rory MacDonald is currently doing light training while he continues to heal from a bad cut which forced him to postpone his fight with BJ Penn, and when he does get into a full camp for the December fight, he intends to make some changes.
“It seems like I can’t stop getting injured in training,” MacDonald told Ariel Helwani backstage at UFC 152 last weekend. “so I’m going to have to make some changes in how I’m approaching the sport and what I’m doing as far as taking fights, training for them and stuff. I’m going to do things my way from now on.”
MacDonald says he’ll remain at the Tri-Star gym where he trains alongside the likes of welterweight champion Georges St.Pierre, but he’s going to take more of a hands-on approach to his own fight camps.
“Obviously not everyone’s going to have the same outlook as me, but at the end of the day I’m the one getting in the cage and I’m putting myself at risk, so I make the final call.”
He doesn’t say exactly what it is he plans on changing, but from the sounds of things he doesn’t like the idea of an eight-week training camp, and presumably wants to shorten that, while indicating that he’d also like to fight more often.
It’ll be intriguing to see how this goes. It’s a risk stepping away from conventional wisdom on training for a fight, but MacDonald is part of the ‘new breed’ of MMA fighter and as a natural athlete who’s pretty much in shape all-year round, perhaps he’s on to something here.
We’ll get our first chance to see how he gets on when he meets Penn at UFC On FOX 5 on December 8th.
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