Rory MacDonald likes BJJ and Ronda Rousey, WMMA not so much

Top UFC welterweight Rory MacDonald recently appeared on The MMA Hour for a wide-ranging in studio interview. It turns out he is crazy about Conor McGregor (cutting edge techniques, wants to train with him at some point in Ireland), crazy about BJJ, pretty crazy about Ronda Rousey, but MMA, well, less so.

“I don’t know what it is,” said MacDonald as transcribed by Chuck Mindenhall for MMAFighting. “I find it that they fight with a lot of emotion, and sometimes the technique gets thrown out the backdoor a lot of the time. Not all of the time. And don’t get me wrong, I respect them. They fight hard. It’s no joke. But it’s not something that I watch a lot.”

“Ronda… I think is really good. Her judo’s really impressive, how she uses it in MMA. And I’m not a fan of women’s MMA. I just don’t watch it. She’s the only one that I’m like, wow, super-skilled. I like watching skilled fighters, and I think she uses her skill super-well.”

MacDonald competes in Metamoris on Nov 15 vs. world no gi BJJ black belt champion J.T. Torres. It will be Ares’ first grappling competition since he was a teen.

“I think it will be huge,” said MacDonald of the future of Metamoris. “I mean jiu-jitsu is super-popular. It’s growing in popularity. It’s a great sport to just get into and watch. I like it.”

“I love jiu-jitsu. I’ve been doing jiu-jitsu since I was 14 years old. It actually was the martial art that was really stapled in my mind that said, this is what I want to do…I want to do martial arts for the rest of my life. It was the first thing I fell in love with. I haven’t really got to show that in a long time. I haven’t been in a grappling match or a grappling tournament in a long time. After this fight I have kind of a layoff between my next fight, so why not?”

That next fight is expected to be vs. the winner of Johny Hendricks vs. Robbie Lawler on Dec. 6 at UFC 181. If everything aligns, the fight could be in March.