It surprises people when I tell them I was born to fight, but really, it’s true.
My interest in mixed martial arts started when I was very young and still at school. My brother, my dad and I would sit around and watch early UFC video tapes at home and then I’d go outside and slug the heavy bags that my father had hung up in his yard. I would repeat the punches and kicks that I’d seen my UFC heroes use on television and nothing excited me more as a kid.
I’ve always enjoyed competition and combat sports. I’d always had an interest in MMA, but wasn’t able to do anything about that interest until I found an MMA gym at 14 and started training. I loved the training and couldn’t get enough of it. I quit all the other sports I was doing, including hockey, and focused entirely on dedicating my life to becoming a great mixed martial artist.
Mixed martial arts took over my life, and it was often all I thought about when I was at school. If I was sitting in a lesson and bored, I’d be thinking about training. If I was eating lunch at lunchtime, I’d be thinking about training. If I was counting down the minutes until the school bell rang, I’d be thinking about training.
Nobody at school believed me when I told them I was planning on becoming a professional fighter. It got to the point where I actually hated telling people about it, because they all just assumed Rory was telling another lie.
I wasn’t a super popular kid at school, and not many people put a lot of value into the stuff I was saying at 14. I was small and shy and didn’t think the same way a lot of the kids in my class did. I was, after all, thinking of becoming a fighter.
I also didn’t look anything like a fighter. I was scrawny and timid and wasn’t the type to get involved in fights at school. To be honest, I still don’t even look like a fighter now, so I can understand my classmates’ reluctance to believe me.
A couple of years down the line I ended up fighting professionally and proving all my classmates wrong. I was still only 16. A few more years after that, I ended up competing in the UFC. It goes without saying, all the kids from school now know I wasn’t lying.
Fighting never felt like a risk to me. It didn’t feel like something that would be uncomfortable or challenging. As soon as I started training towards becoming a fighter, I knew the sport would be with me for the rest of my life. It was a gradual process, but at no point did I ever doubt whether I’d be good or strong enough to do it.
I won all my fights pretty easily to begin with, and that undoubtedly gave me a lot of confidence. I was fighting older guys in their 20s, and yet they couldn’t do anything to me. Even as a tiny 16-year-old kid, I suddenly felt invincible. It was becoming too easy for me. I was brought along slowly and properly by my manager David Lee, and at no point did I feel rushed or out of my depth. It all felt so natural to me.
I was very nervous ahead of my pro debut, as all my family was in attendance and I still didn’t really know what to expect from the sport. Training is one thing, but actually competing is a different proposition altogether. I didn’t really know how to deal with the build-up to the fight — the waiting, the thinking, the walking to the cage and that whole process. Normally, if I got into a fight at school or at home, it would happen spontaneously. You wouldn’t have all that time to think about it and you never gave nerves a chance.
However, I quickly realized pro fighting was as much to do with who could keep their nerves on the night as it was who could land the best shot. My legs were shaky as hell in that first fight, and I really didn’t know how to control my body or mind.
I still get nervous even now, but experience allows me to deal with it all far better than I did back then. Georges St-Pierre and Jon Jones both say that they experience butterflies, but that they make them fly in formation. I love that saying.
I am now 21 and am currently competing in the UFC. On August 6, I will face Mike Pyle at UFC 133 in Philadelphia. I’m sure I’ll be nervous, just hopefully not to the extent I was at 16. Preparation has allowed me to have confidence in myself and subsequently I am looking forward to August 6, rather than fearing it.
I had a great day of sparring on Saturday at the Tristar Gym in Montreal. I’m feeling sharp, fit and strong and am exactly where I need to be at this point in time. I’ve been training full-on now for six to eight weeks and didn’t even really take a day off after beating Nate Diaz in April. I simply moved straight into this camp, which was great, because every fighter likes to stay busy.
Although I’m still young, in fighting terms, I feel old and experienced beyond my years. I am ready for a test like Pyle…
Hit me up on Twitter @rory_macdonald.
Rory MacDonald fights Mike Pyle at UFC 133 in Philadelphia on Aug. 6
