Rory MacDonald Latest To Quit Sparring After ‘Thousands Of Rounds’

Former UFC welterweight title challenger Rory MacDonald has recently made headlines around MMA for a variety of topics, with most of them centering on his potentially ground-breaking deal with Bellator MMA following a 0-2 stint to close out his UFC career.

Not surprisingly, “The Red King” has since called out his former employers on a litany of topics such as fighter pay and treatment that are currently at the forefront of MMA’s most heated discussions.

Unfortunately, however, those headlines are going to be the extent of what we’re going to hear from this new, outspoken version of MacDonald for now, as the broken nose he suffered at against Robbie Lawler at UFC 189 and re-broke against Stephen Thompson this June will keep him out of the Bellator cage until sometime in summer 2017.

When he does begin training to return, MacDonald will make some changes to his camp. He told Ariel Helwani on ‘The MMA Hour‘ that he was going to follow the many elite fighters who have eliminated hard sparring from their training:

“I want to make sure my nose is completely healed. I didn’t do that last year after the Robbie fight. I just kind of was too hungry to get back in there and start punching people, and getting into sparring matches and stuff. I didn’t go about it smart, so this time I’ve got to take the proper (approach).

“I don’t know if it’ll be summer, but I really have to be smart about it and I have to lay off sparring. I’m really going to tone that down in my career, in general, because I’ve been doing this since I was 14 years old sparring full-grown men, so I’ve done thousands upon thousands of rounds. I’ve really just got to cool that down at this point in my career.”

When he does finally step into a Bellator cage, MacDonald plans to bring the house down with performances, where he predicts he’ll be running through opponents with dominating ease, especially in his native Canada:

“One-hundred percent, we’re coming to Canada. And like I was tweeting [Sunday], these shows are going to be big. This is going to be a legit show. You’re going to go there and it’s going to be an experience. You’re going to be talking about it on the car ride home and the next day, saying ‘oh wow, that was an amazing show, I can’t wait for the next one.’

“And I can guarantee you, I’m going to be putting on a strong fight game when I come out there for Bellator. I’m going to be dropping people like flies out there. I’m going to be coming forward and bringing the action. Without a doubt, people are going to be going crazy.”