Whether you've been a fan of MMA for over a decade and have formed an opinion on every fighter currently on the UFC's roster, or you're only interested in what a certain Irishman gets up to and only tune in when he is involved on a card, you'll still know who Rory MacDonald is.
His war with Robbie Lawler is what will have been the final springboard into mainstream MMA consciousness, but the 'Red King' has established a reputation for himself as not only an absolute warrior but as a wonderfully skilled MMA practitioner since he made a victorious UFC debut as a 20-year-old back in 2010 and went on to consistently impress in his next 11 fights with the organisation, with the only losses during that period coming at the hands of Carlos Condit, and Robbie Lawler (twice).
He's a stud. MacDonald's upcoming fight with Stephen 'Wonderboy' Thompson is legitimately one of the most exciting fights that the UFC could possibly put on, but while speaking to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour on Monday, Rory MacDonald revealed that his fight at UFC Fight Night Ottowa on June 18th is the last on his contract.
.@rory_macdonald tells @arielhelwani on #themmahour that his next fight is last of UFC contract, will fight it out https://t.co/mIfJc7uXQd
— Eric Jackman (@NewYorkRic) March 14, 2016
Now, that in itself is not shocking news. The UFC often let fighters run down their contracts before offering them new ones, and for obvious reasons, but the fact that they are gambling with someone like MacDonald is a tad unnerving.
However, what he told Helwani about trying to get a new contract out of the UFC is even more worrying:
We had been in negotiations with my new contract since my last fight, but they had offered me to fight Hector [Lombard] next, and I said 'definitely,' let's do it'. So I think they booked me for the London card, and right about when I was gonna start training camp, they said 'we don't feel like you're ready because you haven't started sparring yet', but I never told them that I wasn't ready or wasn't healthy, they just asked me if I was sparring and I said 'no, I was gonna wait until training camp started'.
So they were like 'OK we're gonna postpone it 'till the Austrailia card [this coming weekend]' but I was like 'Well, I wanna fight in London, and I don't want to be flying that far to go fight this guy', so I was like 'tell you what, I'll fight in Australia, but I want the new contract'. Apparently they weren't willing to do that because the next thing that happened was they booked him to fight Neil Magney.
Pay the man!!
This isn't a prelim fighter who might break into the top 10, this is a proven competitor who is not yet even at the peak of his powers and will be in the title shakeup for years to come.
The fact that the UFC were waiting for a better bargaining angle doesn't say much for how they treat their talent as it was, but considering that MacDonald even offered to take a fight he didn't want to take simply to secure his future with the organisation, and they said no, is alarming.
According to wikipedia (I know, I know), Rory is on the same 40k/40k contract that Sage Northcutt is on. How does that make sense? It's not like he's asking for McGregor money either.
MacDonald vs Thompson will be a cracker, and Rory will get paid. There is almost no chance that he leaves the UFC, as he simply has to go up against the fighters that currently occupy the organisation's welterweight division, but the fact that he is being made to sweat it out over a new deal is just... Cold.
Surely he deserves better.
via MMAFighting.com
