UFC on FOX 8's Rory MacDonald: 'Sometimes, you just want to hurt someone'

It’s impossible not to sense a sadistic streak in the 23-year-old Rory MacDonald (14-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) as he speaks about his upcoming fight with Jake Ellenberger (29-6 MMA, 8-2 UFC) at UFC on FOX 8.

MacDonald insists it’s not personal when he said he sometimes feels the need to hurt someone badly in the cage. He said he won’t know whether he’ll try to do that to Ellenberger until the night of July 27, when they meet in the fight card’s co-main event at KeyArena in Seattle.

Yet MacDonald said the last guy to talk trash to him – before Ellenberger decided to berate him on Twitter and in interviews – took more abuse than he might have taken had he elected to keep pre-fight interviews respectful.

“The B.J. fight, I was having fun just beating on him,” MacDonald told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “He was talking a little bit of trash, so I figured I might just hurt him a little bit more.”

The Penn fight cemented MacDonald’s status as a one of the welterweight division’s most talented fighters, and despite his stated refusal to fight his training partner and champ Georges St-Pierre, a future titleholder.

Ellenberger, 28, was angry at losing a chance to jump to the front of the line when MacDonald withdrew from a rematch with Carlos Condit at UFC 158 and his original opponent, Johny Hendricks, filled the gap.

“The Juggernaut” went on to knock out Nate Marquardt in the first round in the March event, and Condit’s decision loss made MacDonald the logical next step for a meeting of two top contenders. Since then, he’s tried out a handful of snappy one-liners at MacDonald’s expense.

“Rory: Welcome to “Chez’ Ellenberger,” Ellenberger recently wrote. “Tonight’s special is CANVAS SANDWICHES served FACE DOWN. Bon’ appetit’!”

It stands to reason, then, that he could be in for an unpleasant night in the Pacific Northwest – that is, if he’s not able to solve MacDonald before he gets solved.

But again, MacDonald said everyone, including him, will know when the fists start flying. The fighter nicknamed “Ares” is just as icy when he talks about Ellenberger as he is with most opponents these days. It’s prompted many fans to call him the Canadian version of the fictional character of Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho.”

Although he doesn’t appear to fully embrace it, the persona has become its own marketing tool. When his interviews take a bloodless tone, it prompts a reaction from fans that the usual pre-fight banter doesn’t.

It also makes you worry about MacDonald a little bit.

Yet it’s in that vein that he says Ellenberger is no different than any other opponent standing across from him in the cage, and no different a fight.

“Not for me,” said MacDonald. “Maybe it is for him, but at the end of the day, this is my job, to fight. I don’t let trash talk or anything get in the way or [have] a difference in my focus or my emotions. He could be the nicest guy, or the rudest guy.

“He chose that route, and really, it doesn’t make a difference to me. I’m going in there to win a fight, regardless of what attitude he brings in there.

“My last opponent had some stuff to say, too,” MacDonald said. “At the end of the day, it’s just bickering. The great thing about our job is that we get to solve our problems because we get locked in a cage, and they tell us to fight.”

And yet there’s an undercurrent to his words that’s just hard to ignore.

“Sometimes you train so hard and for so long and you only get 15 minutes max of game day for a few times a year,” MacDonald said. “So sometimes it’s nice to spend a little time in there and get hit once or twice or hit him a little more. Sometimes it’s just a little more fun. Sometimes, you just want to hurt someone and devastate their lives fast. But I only react to how I’m feeling that night.”

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