At UFC 133, Rory MacDonald continued his successful Welterweight run, defeating veteran Mike Pyle in the first round. MacDonald has been slowly picking up a lot of hype, and that hype hit a new high during the Pyle fight, when Joe Rogan proclaimed that the young fighter has the potential to be the next Georges St. Pierre, or even be better than the current champion.
It’s a tremendous compliment, but also a heavy burden to carry. When the expectations are that high, the chances of failure become great. So far, MacDonald has lived up to that hype, but the fights will only get tougher in the UFC’s stacked Welterweight division, and MacDonald will have to keep advancing to meet those expectations.
After the show, Karyn Bryant spoke to MacDonald about the GSP comparison, and the young fighter had some interesting thoughts on it:
[St. Pierre is] a great freind of mine, helps me out a hell of a lot. He’s a mentor of mine. As far as people saying I could be greater than him or I have the potential of him, I take that as a compliment, but I’ll never be Georges. I’m Rory MacDonald. I’m going to do my thing, do it the way I want to do it, and fight new guys, do new things. We’re completely different fighters.
Bryant also asks if there’s anyone MacDonald wants to fight next. Not surprisingly, he has his eyes set on one day avenging the only blemish on his record:
My rematch with Carlos [Condit] is very important to me… hopefully we’ll meet up along the road. I know it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of when.
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