MacDonald on MMA: Back so soon?

So the one week that I miss a blog and miss doing picks, I quite possibly could have picked them all right.

If I had done my UFC 134 predictions, I would have definitely picked Anderson Silva, Shogun Rua, Minotauro Nogueira and Edson Barboza.

What I found funny was the response from Nogueira after he knocked out Brendan Schaub. He wins one fight and then starts screaming “I’m Back!”

What’s with guys triumphantly exclaiming they’re back after just one win? Nogueira admittedly said beforehand he was just one fight away from being released.

Vitor Belfort did the same thing. He was knocked out by one kick by Silva and then beats Akiyami in his last fight and all of a sudden he’s back. Same thing with Tito Ortiz after beating Ryan Bader.

The reality is you’re only as good as your last fight. If you lost you could be on the chopping block, if you win you’re back in the mix. But it doesn’t totally turn your career around. Nogueira could be one loss away from being another loss away from retirement.

For them to suggest winning one fight is life-changing or career-changing makes me wonder: Did you not think you were going to win the fight? If you were thinking of retiring it should be if your body is telling you or other circumstances in your life are leading you in that direction. You shouldn’t be thinking that if you lose you’ll retire but if you win, you’re back in contention.

I believe it was Forrest Griffin who said it best when he said it’s really “what you’ve done lately.” I was looking at an MMA magazine this morning and saw Tapout ads for a bunch of guys I haven’t heard about in the past few months.

For example, Anthony Johnson, who last fought in March. I haven’t heard that guy being mentioned in months. In this sport, if you’re not fighting, you risk becoming irrelevant.

As for Forrest’s fight, that was the case of two guys going in complete opposite directions. With Rua I think there is a direct link between how good a shape he is in physically and how well he fights. This training camp he was obviously healthy and fought very well. In his last one he said he didn’t have a good training camp and he didn’t feel fit and had an absolutely horrible fight.

I think it’s true for every fighter and especially true for Shogun. He was fit this time and very motivated to get that win back against Griffin and it showed.

Likewise, Forrest said he’s not getting better and really only doing it to pay the bills. His wife was also having a baby and he wasn’t into being down in Brazil and it showed in his performance.

Meanwhile, Silva showed he is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. I really didn’t expect him to go out there and pull of an Abu Dhabi-type performance and he didn’t disappoint. He just brings something new to the table every time he comes to fight now. People can’t figure him out. Okami couldn’t get anything going.

As a fighter you can train with whoever you want, but that doesn’t mean you’ll fight like them. Okami trained with Chael Sonnen and wanted to fight Silva the way he did and hoped to have similar success, but the bottom line is Okami isn’t Sonnen. And that fight looked nothing like Sonnen’s fight against Silva either.

The reason I’m always tough on GSP is because I expect him to do things like what Silva did on Saturday, because he is that good and I believe he has the ability to go out there and do that to everyone in the division.

I was watching UFC 134 at a BBQ at a friend’s house and the volume was down so didn’t hear the crowd that much. But it sounds like fans in Rio were pretty excited from the very first fight of the night. I still remember at the first fight in Montreal fans were lined up around the block at the Bell Centre at 10 in the morning, even though every one with a ticket had assigned seating!

It’s unfortunate that Sam Stout and Chris Horodecki (and other Adrenaline Training Center guys) had to pull out of their fights after the loss of trainer Shawn Tompkins, but I fully expected them to. It’s going to be tough — Sam has always had Shawn there every training camp. It’s too soon after his death to pull together new coaches and decide what you want to do for your training.

Sam has had some big bonuses so he has some time to put things back together, both training and emotionally and get back to fighting when he’s in the right place.

There’s been some talk in the news about Jones-Rampage and a spy in Rampage’s camp. I think that’s a lot of talk. How do you have a spy in your camp? Do you not train with your teammates and your friends? All I know is I can trust the people in my camp.

And even if you do have someone in your camp who you don’t trust fully, if you have someone that close to you and going back to another camp and giving them info, you may want to rethink the people you have surrounding you. There’s a reason why Lance Gibson left the Rampage camp. I don’t know what it is, but there has to be more to the story. Maybe it’s a dysfunctional camp, but I’m just speculating.

As for me and my camp, the last two weeks before fight week are typically very hard. So this week and next week I’m doing lots of sparring and lots of rounds. I’ve been training my butt off all week, and just taking a much needed day of rest.

My weight’s good, I’m healthy, and I’m excited to get in there and step up to the challenge against Alan Belcher in New Orleans. If anybody wants to sponsor me for this fight, which will be live on Sportsnet, please email me at firre@telus.net.