Jason MacDonald: “I’m going to make this a MMA fight”

Over the past week, Canadian-middleweight Jason “The Athlete” MacDonald has been covering the happenings at UFC 87: Seek and Destroy on his blog at Sportsnet.ca.

In his most recent post, MacDonald discussed his upcoming bout with Demian Maia and how a lot of fans are focusing solely on Maia’s jiu-jitsu skills. MacDonald said, “Everyone’s talking about Maia’s jiu-jitsu, and there’s no doubt he’s a superb jiu-jitsu fighter. But I’m not going to turn this into a jiu-jitsu fight. I’m going to make this a mixed martial arts fight. That’s the bottom line. So, my prediction: I’ll TKO Maia in the second round.”

MacDonald is entering the fight as a +220 underdog but he feels he’ll flourish in the role. The last time the UFC considered MacDonald a stepping stone he submitted The Ultimate Fighter alumni Chris “The Crippler” Leben and Ed “Short Fuse” Herman.

MacDonald is currently 4-2 in the UFC but has failed to secure the necessary wins to consider him a legit contender. MacDonald’s two defeats came to former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin and Yushin Okami.

Another interesting note from MacDonald’s blog was that he used an IV to re-hydrate following Friday’s weigh-ins. “Afterward, when I got back to the hotel, I actually got an IV, which is I believe is one of the safest ways to re-hydrate,” said MacDonald, “I was probably already back up to 200 pounds by the evening.”