Just KC
08-26-2006, 07:03 PM
Kristian Rothaermel didn’t have a chance.
Taking on Rob MacDonald at the Ultimate Fight Night show on June 28th, Rothaermel wasn’t just facing an opponent hungry for a victory after an inauspicious 0-2 start to his UFC career, he was facing a young man with an even more intense motivation.
He was doing it for his Dad.
“That night was actually supposed to be my mom and dad’s wedding anniversary,” remembered MacDonald. And even though his mother Peggy was in attendance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas for her son’s fight, his father Ranald, who had passed away suddenly eight years earlier, wasn’t – at least not physically.
“It was a very hard day for me, and it was a hard day for my mom,” said MacDonald. “My mom had never been to a UFC event before, and she came down to Las Vegas to watch me and support me in my fighting. That fight was the first time since my dad died that I really felt his presence. Las Vegas was his favorite city in the world, and he would have been the first one there at any one of my fights.”
With that type of push behind him, MacDonald just wasn’t going to lose that night, and he didn’t, as he submitted Rothaermel with a textbook armbar at 4:01 of the first round to get his first Octagon win.
“That was huge for me,” said the member of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ season two cast. “I was coming off a not great showing on the show and then I lost my actual debut under a UFC contract, so it takes a lot of pressure off your shoulders getting that first win. When you do that, everybody knows that you have the talent and that you deserve to be there, so now I feel a lot more relaxed and can just go out there and fight.”
This Saturday at UFC 62, MacDonald gets an opportunity to get two in a row when he faces newcomer Eric Schafer. He also gets to do it in the place where he lost to Jason Lambert in March, the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. But the 27-year-old isn’t superstitious or nervous about returning there. Frankly, nothing rattles him too much, which isn’t surprising given his day job as a police officer in Toronto.
“Every day I’m in situations where I’m chasing people, where I’m confronted by people with weapons and drugs, and anything that I’m gonna face on the street - and that’s with me on a day to day basis - is gonna be far more dangerous than anything I’m gonna face in the Octagon,” admits MacDonald, a member of the Anti-Violence squad on the police force. “The other part of that is that policing is something that I absolutely love doing, it’s a vocation, a career, and I love going to work every day. The UFC for me is somewhat of an extreme hobby – it’s a hobby, but I take it like a job. It’s something I take very seriously and I train 30 hours a week, but the bottom line is that the Ultimate Fighting Championship is not my life – I want to be a world champion in it one day, but every day I wake up and go to my job and I love it.”
It’s safe to say that with an attitude like that, the affable MacDonald is one of a kind. Add in the fact that he’s also a former kindergarten teacher with college degrees in English, Psychology, and Education, and you can just imagine the conversations around the family dinner table when MacDonald told of his desire to become a professional prizefighter.
“My mother and I used to be in fights every day because she hated fighting so much,” he admits. “It all culminated when I went on the TV show and quit being a police officer (He later got a job, his current one, with the Toronto police force). She was infuriated. But it’s funny because she sees how happy these jobs make me and how fulfilled I am in my life, and she’s actually the UFC’s biggest fan. She orders pay-per-views behind my back now. It’s something we can talk about and share now.”
Maybe it’s because Peggy MacDonald, along with her husband, are partly to blame for their son’s idea that nothing is impossible.
“I think that comes from my upbringing and I have to credit my mother and father a lot for that,” said MacDonald, who owns a 4-2 mixed martial arts record. “They always taught me never to shy away from a challenge. I picked two of the most challenging things in the world to do and I’ve succeeded at them. I think that comes from the values they’ve instilled in me from day one.”
Talk to MacDonald for any length of time, and you’ll find out that in addition to his compelling day job and ‘hobby’, his inner circle of family, girlfriend, and friends are his base – the ones that not only keep him grounded, but motivated as well. Even now, eight years after his passing, you can hear the emotion in his voice when he speaks of his father. But if he can take any solace from that void in his life, it’s that if anything else happens - whether in the fight game or in life – he can get through it.
“You go through an experience like that, and I think that’s the lowest point you can ever come to in your life – when you lose a father and a friend who’s been there your whole life,” said MacDonald. “After that experience, it really taught me that nothing’s really that bad. No matter what situation you’re in, it could always be worse. I always try to put things in perspective. And further to that, I see people everyday who die of drug overdoses, people who kill themselves, who are dealing with the loss of a family member, and sometimes you have to go to a mother’s door and say ‘your son died tonight in a car accident.’ When you have to do those things every day in your life, nothing in your life is stressful or rattles you anymore.”
That’s why after suffering a serious shoulder injury during the taping of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and losing a bout to Brad Imes – all the while being portrayed in a less than positive light due to the injury – he let it go, chalking it up to a case of television editing.
“Anyone that knows me knows what I’m about, and knows that I’m a fierce competitor with a lot of heart, and that was a television show,” he said. “Everyone who was on the show saw how serious of an injury it was. I had major surgery after my fight and it’s all been documented. So I don’t think it really affected the portrayal of me as a person at all.”
Now, with that experience behind him, MacDonald can get down to the business of chasing after a UFC light heavyweight title. And even though he estimates that he puts in 30 hours in the gym per week, the bottom line is that he still has a full-time day job that he loves and which is demanding. Can a part-time fighter win a light heavyweight title?
“I think I can and I think anything’s possible,” he said. “You just have to be focused enough and disciplined enough to go out and take it. I think every single person in this world has a God-given talent to do what they want. What it comes down to is work ethic. If you’re willing to put enough blood, sweat, and tears into anything, I really believe you’ll get anything you want out of life.”
And if he does make it that far in this game and the UFC needs him as a full-time spokesman and champion, could he put police work to the side?
“Absolutely I could, but it would depend on the circumstances at the time,” he said. “I would like to do both as long as I can, but there may come a point where I have to pick one. We all know you can’t fight forever - there’s gonna come a point when I’m 45 years old and I can’t fight, and what I would do in that case is take a leave of absence from the police force, I would follow through on my fighting career, and then when I’m done I would come back to the police force.”
Sounds like a guy who’s got it all figured out. But instead of being smug about that fact, Rob MacDonald goes through life simply enjoying every minute of it. He’s survived the rough patches that can come from the death of a parent, a divorce in his own life, and dealing with the ravages of crime in his day job, and he’s still standing. There’s something to be said for that.
“I’m a guy right now who’s living a dream,” he said. “I have a great job (as a police officer), and I have another great job being a fighter. I have the best life in the world as far as I’m concerned
Taking on Rob MacDonald at the Ultimate Fight Night show on June 28th, Rothaermel wasn’t just facing an opponent hungry for a victory after an inauspicious 0-2 start to his UFC career, he was facing a young man with an even more intense motivation.
He was doing it for his Dad.
“That night was actually supposed to be my mom and dad’s wedding anniversary,” remembered MacDonald. And even though his mother Peggy was in attendance at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas for her son’s fight, his father Ranald, who had passed away suddenly eight years earlier, wasn’t – at least not physically.
“It was a very hard day for me, and it was a hard day for my mom,” said MacDonald. “My mom had never been to a UFC event before, and she came down to Las Vegas to watch me and support me in my fighting. That fight was the first time since my dad died that I really felt his presence. Las Vegas was his favorite city in the world, and he would have been the first one there at any one of my fights.”
With that type of push behind him, MacDonald just wasn’t going to lose that night, and he didn’t, as he submitted Rothaermel with a textbook armbar at 4:01 of the first round to get his first Octagon win.
“That was huge for me,” said the member of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ season two cast. “I was coming off a not great showing on the show and then I lost my actual debut under a UFC contract, so it takes a lot of pressure off your shoulders getting that first win. When you do that, everybody knows that you have the talent and that you deserve to be there, so now I feel a lot more relaxed and can just go out there and fight.”
This Saturday at UFC 62, MacDonald gets an opportunity to get two in a row when he faces newcomer Eric Schafer. He also gets to do it in the place where he lost to Jason Lambert in March, the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. But the 27-year-old isn’t superstitious or nervous about returning there. Frankly, nothing rattles him too much, which isn’t surprising given his day job as a police officer in Toronto.
“Every day I’m in situations where I’m chasing people, where I’m confronted by people with weapons and drugs, and anything that I’m gonna face on the street - and that’s with me on a day to day basis - is gonna be far more dangerous than anything I’m gonna face in the Octagon,” admits MacDonald, a member of the Anti-Violence squad on the police force. “The other part of that is that policing is something that I absolutely love doing, it’s a vocation, a career, and I love going to work every day. The UFC for me is somewhat of an extreme hobby – it’s a hobby, but I take it like a job. It’s something I take very seriously and I train 30 hours a week, but the bottom line is that the Ultimate Fighting Championship is not my life – I want to be a world champion in it one day, but every day I wake up and go to my job and I love it.”
It’s safe to say that with an attitude like that, the affable MacDonald is one of a kind. Add in the fact that he’s also a former kindergarten teacher with college degrees in English, Psychology, and Education, and you can just imagine the conversations around the family dinner table when MacDonald told of his desire to become a professional prizefighter.
“My mother and I used to be in fights every day because she hated fighting so much,” he admits. “It all culminated when I went on the TV show and quit being a police officer (He later got a job, his current one, with the Toronto police force). She was infuriated. But it’s funny because she sees how happy these jobs make me and how fulfilled I am in my life, and she’s actually the UFC’s biggest fan. She orders pay-per-views behind my back now. It’s something we can talk about and share now.”
Maybe it’s because Peggy MacDonald, along with her husband, are partly to blame for their son’s idea that nothing is impossible.
“I think that comes from my upbringing and I have to credit my mother and father a lot for that,” said MacDonald, who owns a 4-2 mixed martial arts record. “They always taught me never to shy away from a challenge. I picked two of the most challenging things in the world to do and I’ve succeeded at them. I think that comes from the values they’ve instilled in me from day one.”
Talk to MacDonald for any length of time, and you’ll find out that in addition to his compelling day job and ‘hobby’, his inner circle of family, girlfriend, and friends are his base – the ones that not only keep him grounded, but motivated as well. Even now, eight years after his passing, you can hear the emotion in his voice when he speaks of his father. But if he can take any solace from that void in his life, it’s that if anything else happens - whether in the fight game or in life – he can get through it.
“You go through an experience like that, and I think that’s the lowest point you can ever come to in your life – when you lose a father and a friend who’s been there your whole life,” said MacDonald. “After that experience, it really taught me that nothing’s really that bad. No matter what situation you’re in, it could always be worse. I always try to put things in perspective. And further to that, I see people everyday who die of drug overdoses, people who kill themselves, who are dealing with the loss of a family member, and sometimes you have to go to a mother’s door and say ‘your son died tonight in a car accident.’ When you have to do those things every day in your life, nothing in your life is stressful or rattles you anymore.”
That’s why after suffering a serious shoulder injury during the taping of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and losing a bout to Brad Imes – all the while being portrayed in a less than positive light due to the injury – he let it go, chalking it up to a case of television editing.
“Anyone that knows me knows what I’m about, and knows that I’m a fierce competitor with a lot of heart, and that was a television show,” he said. “Everyone who was on the show saw how serious of an injury it was. I had major surgery after my fight and it’s all been documented. So I don’t think it really affected the portrayal of me as a person at all.”
Now, with that experience behind him, MacDonald can get down to the business of chasing after a UFC light heavyweight title. And even though he estimates that he puts in 30 hours in the gym per week, the bottom line is that he still has a full-time day job that he loves and which is demanding. Can a part-time fighter win a light heavyweight title?
“I think I can and I think anything’s possible,” he said. “You just have to be focused enough and disciplined enough to go out and take it. I think every single person in this world has a God-given talent to do what they want. What it comes down to is work ethic. If you’re willing to put enough blood, sweat, and tears into anything, I really believe you’ll get anything you want out of life.”
And if he does make it that far in this game and the UFC needs him as a full-time spokesman and champion, could he put police work to the side?
“Absolutely I could, but it would depend on the circumstances at the time,” he said. “I would like to do both as long as I can, but there may come a point where I have to pick one. We all know you can’t fight forever - there’s gonna come a point when I’m 45 years old and I can’t fight, and what I would do in that case is take a leave of absence from the police force, I would follow through on my fighting career, and then when I’m done I would come back to the police force.”
Sounds like a guy who’s got it all figured out. But instead of being smug about that fact, Rob MacDonald goes through life simply enjoying every minute of it. He’s survived the rough patches that can come from the death of a parent, a divorce in his own life, and dealing with the ravages of crime in his day job, and he’s still standing. There’s something to be said for that.
“I’m a guy right now who’s living a dream,” he said. “I have a great job (as a police officer), and I have another great job being a fighter. I have the best life in the world as far as I’m concerned