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Rory MacDonald admitted to being burned out from fighting MMA. | PFL MMA
Don’t call it a comeback — at least not yet.
Former Bellator MMA champ and UFC title challenger Rory MacDonald appears to have recently discovered a renewed passion for mixed martial arts. During an appearance on “The Ariel Helwani Show,” the 36-year-old Canadian revealed that he has been training on a regular basis.
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“I don’t know [if I’m coming back], but I’m back in the gym full time,” MacDonald said. “It’s got me loving training again, that’s for sure. I don’t know what that will lead to, but I’m enjoying my time in martial arts again. It just feels good.
“I’m training twice a day, three times a day. It is more than staying in shape, for sure. I’m trying to improve myself. There’s nothing for sure, I’m just having fun at this point and I’m letting God just take the direction in my life — and where the doors open, if there’s opportunities, I’m going down that path.”
MacDonald’s last professional appearance came on Aug. 13, 2022, when he suffered a first-round technical knockout loss to Dilano Taylor in the Professional Fighters League playoffs. He announced his retirement shortly after that defeat.
The Tristar Gym standout struggled during his PFL stint, going 2-4 after signing with the organization as a high profile free agent. “The Red King” began fighting in MMA as a teenager and became a star in the UFC, where he battled Robbie Lawler for the welterweight crown in a bloody slugfest at UFC 189. Though he came up short in that bout, MacDonald would go on to capture championship gold in Bellator, when he defeated Douglas Lima via unanimous decision in January 2018. Toward the end of his Bellator tenure, MacDonald admitted that his motivation to fight was waning and that he didn’t have that “killer instinct” following a majority draw against Jon Fitch in 2019. That seemingly carried over to his PFL stint before he called it a career.
MacDonald: ‘The Fire is Always There’
However, it seems that some of that drive has returned over time. Whether that results in a return to active competition remains to be seen.
“Yeah, the fire is always there, it’s always part of me,” MacDonald said. “I feel like that was put inside me from an early age. That competition and the love for martial arts. That never really died when I left. Even when I was burned out, I still carried that edge with me. Even though I’m at peace and everything, I’m happy and I’m in a much better life than what I was when I was in the UFC and in my career, but I still have that part of me that I think I’ll carry for all of my life.
“I was just burned out. And when you’re tired of doing something for so long and not seeing results, I don’t know — a lot of things that just didn’t go your way, then you get disappointed about it, and it carries a heaviness about it. But time sometimes can heal.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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