Jason MacDonald has heard it all, but after what he's gone through the middleweight fighter can block out dummy fans saying he should retire.� A resident of Red Deer, Alta, Canada, MacDonald is fighting for the first time since breaking his tibia and fibula, and tearing both ligaments off the bone.
"Initially the injury was horrible and the surgery and the months following the surgery were pretty rough. You feel a lot of pain," MacDonald told the Canadian Press.
"When you're laid up and not able to get around and not able to do things you're used to doing, you do a lot of soul-searching, you doubt yourself and you doubt if you can even recover. But as your body gets stronger, you become stronger mentally and you get healthy mentally again and you start to realize 'Hey I'm good."'
MacDonald (23-14) faces Ryan Jensen (16-6) on the undercard at UFC 129. The fight will air on the UFC's Facebook page.
Frankly, it's amazing the 35-year-old is back this soon after suffering the terrible injury last May against John Salter at UFC 113. Believe it or not, he actually tried to return in December at UFC 124. Then reality struck and MacDonald realized he'd better slow it down.
"I was training two or three times a day and I was waking up in the morning barely able to walk to the washroom, so I had to just pull back on the training a little bit and ease up and get it a little bit stronger."
This is MacDonald's 12th fight with the promotion. He's gone 5-6 with wins over Ed Herman and Chris Leben. He's got three losses against high level fighters in Rich Franklin, Demian Maia and Yushin Okami. None of that will matter Saturday night. No one's going to feel sorry for him or accept the injury as an excuse, so MacDonald knows this is a make or break fight.
"For me this fight is huge. Let's be realistic. I'm coming off an injury and not just an injury, it was still considered a loss. So in my eyes, I'm fighting for my job."
Good for MacDonald. It's nice to see him back and hopefully he can prove schmucks like these wrong:
turbosteve291 day ago
I think its time for macdonald to hang up the gloves, hes washed up too old
ianzacks2 days ago
this guy always gets knocked out , the only reason he makes ufc cards , they need canadian content when fighting in canada. He looks the part , and gets knocked out better then anyone else ....
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Let's hope the majority of fans get it. Give MacDonald credit for sacrificing this much to give us a little entertainment on a Saturday night.
You can watch UFC 129 on PPV (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT) right here on Yahoo! Sports.
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