UFC 174 winner Rory MacDonald: 'I don't want to be a superstar'

VANCOUVER – Rory MacDonald may be following a similar career path as his Tristar teammate Georges St-Pierre, but he isn’t seeking the superstar status of “Rush.”

MacDonald (17-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC) earned arguably the most impressive victory of his career over Tyron Woodley (13-3 MMA, 3-2 UFC) at UFC 174 on Saturday night and is well on his way to earning a welterweight title shot.

While the Canadian has a strong desire to become the best fighter in the world in his weight class, he isn’t interested in carrying the weight of his home country on his shoulders.

“I want them to like me, but I don’t want to be a superstar,” MacDonald told MMAjunkie immediately following his win. “I just like to fight and hopefully I’ll be a dominant champion and represent Canada well.”

MacDonald outclassed Woodley for three rounds en route to a lopsided unanimous decision victory in front of the fans in his home province of British Columbia. “Ares” was sharp from start to finish, and while he was satisfied with his performance, he is slightly disappointed he couldn’t pick up a knockout or submission.

“I wanted to get in there, I wanted to mix it up and I wanted to stay busy,” MacDonald said. “I wanted to close the fight, I came in really good shape and I was looking for the finish tonight.”

Even though he was unable to stop Woodley inside the distance, MacDonald thinks his effort was the best of not only his 10-fight UFC career, but his entire tenure as a professional mixed martial artist.

“I think this is probably my best performance of my career so far,” MacDonald said. “I’ve got to watch the tape, but the feeling I have right now I’m pretty happy right now. Except closing the fight I didn’t get the finish, but things went well.

“A lot of credit has to go to my coach Firas Zahabi and the Tristar gym. I think I’m falling into a groove and I don’t know, something’s clicking.”

The 24-year-old has now won seven of his past eight octagon appearances and is in the thick of the 170-pound title hunt along with Robbie Lawler and Matt Brown, who fight in the UFC on FOX 12 headliner next month.

There was discussion about whether MacDonald’s win against Woodley would be enough to jump him to the front of the line for the next shot at Johny Hendricks’ belt, but UFC President Dana White told FOX Sports following the event that the Lawler-Brown winner is still the frontrunner.

An argument can be made that MacDonald deserves to fight Hendricks now, but if he has to wait a little while longer, that’s OK, because he plans on staying active until the gold is around his waist.

“I like to fight,” MacDonald said. “If I wait a year for a shot, if someone gets injured or maybe they forget about me. I like to fight, so I’ll just continue fighting if I have to wait.”

“I want to be clear that I want that. I just wanted to say I respect the decision of the UFC. There’s two guys ahead of me, but if that fight’s a stinker I’ll be ready.”

For complete coverage of UFC 174, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.