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Last time Jason (The Athlete) MacDonald got annoyed at an opponent, he took it out on Rory Singer en route to a TKO at UFC 72 last June in Belfast.
Well, it's got personal again for the mixed martial arts fighter from Red Deer, Alta.
Upset at disrespectful comments from Winnipeg's Joe Doerksen, MacDonald is riled going into an all-Canadian middleweight matchup Saturday at UFC 83 in Montreal's Bell Centre (available on pay-per-view).
Doerksen has provided plenty of fodder.
"Honestly, Jason's a talented fighter but as a fan I wouldn't consider him one of my favourite fighters," Doerksen told The Canadian Press. "I think he's a little bit more arrogant than he needs to be."
On his Rogers Sportsnet website blog, Doerksen added: "He's not as good as he thinks he is."
MacDonald has also bristled at reports of other Doerksen trash talk: suggestions that he was exposed in losses to Rich Franklin and Yushin Okami, and that he doesn't belong in the UFC.
When the fight was announced, MacDonald was not so keen on the idea, reasoning that he had already beaten Doerksen (in 2005) and wanted a new challenge. Thanks to Doerksen's mouth, he is now warming to the idea.
"Now it's a little bit personal, and if anyone questioned my motivation going into this fight before, they don't have to question it any more because I'm very motivated," said MacDonald, a tattooed former prison guard with a taste for motorcycles.
MacDonald says he has no problem with fighters talking up their own abilities. But he takes objection at signs of disrespect.
"Joe Doerksen is 1-5 in the UFC and he just got knocked out by a guy (Ed Herman) that I beat in the first round. So if you want a little taste of reality, that's the reality of it," MacDonald said. "Anything can happen in a fight and I know that, so I don't go around running my mouth off like Joe Doerksen's doing about me."
MacDonald won via by fourth-round submission when the two met at a UCW event in Winnipeg in October 2005. Doerksen had already fought three times in the UFC then. MacDonald was seven fights away from his UFC debut.
Doerksen maintains a bad cut in the first round of that 2005 fight affected his performance. The MacDonald camp apparently didn't share the opinion.
"His management and himself as well told anyone who would listen that I have no hope in hell of ever beating him, if we fought 100 times, I'd lose 99 out of a 100 and that the cut had no effect on the fight whatsoever, (that) Jason was just the better fighter. And I certainly took offence to that," Doerksen said. "I thought that was rather an arrogant statement to be making. I think he's almost delusional, but again that's just my opinion."
Countered MacDonald: "He must have amnesia and he's forgetting about what happened at our last fight."
UFC president Dana White is no doubt chuckling at the war of words. But he was relishing this matchup before the trash-talking began.
"That's a good Canada fight right there," he told The Canadian Press. "I don't know who I give the edge to."
MacDonald (20-9) is 3-2 in the UFC with losses to former champion Franklin and top contender Okami. Doerksen (39-11) is 1-4 with losses to Herman, Matt Lindland, Nate Marquardt and Joe Riggs (and Paulo Filho in the WEC).
"You look at his record and think, wow, this guy doesn't have that great of a record," White said. "Then you look at who he's fought and it's the who's who in that weight division."
Doerksen's last outing was at UFC 78 in November when he was knocked out in the second round by Herman. The 30-year-old Winnipegger took the fight on two weeks notice and suffered a broken orbital bone in the face after eating a knee in the first round.
"At first I thought it was my nose that was broken . . . I found out later it was a fractured orbital bone near the eye," he recalled. "But I definitely knew something wasn't right.
"Getting punched isn't necessarily pleasant but it tends to be painful after you can get use to it. For some reason, there was a lot of pain in my face that day after getting hit so I knew there was some damage down there."
A gamer, Doerksen almost finished Herman off with a triangle choke late in the second round.
MacDonald, 32, is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Okami at UFC 77 in October.
"Okami's a tough guy, man," said White. "A tough guy and very awkward to fight. If he doesn't beat you, he's going to make you look bad. He's just one of those guys that has one of those styles."
The fight before that, MacDonald smacked Singer around.
Singer, a quirky graduate of "The Ultimate Fighter" reality TV show, lived up his Outburst nickname at the pre-fight UFC 72 news conference when he suggested the six-foot-three, 185-pound MacDonald do some squats to build up his "skinny legs" and think about trying out for a male dance troupe -- because "he's a handsome man, he's quite sinewy."
Singer then took another jab at the Canadian, whose nicknames include TUF Killer after beating "Ultimate Fighter" alumni Herman and Chris Leben.
"After I beat Jason MacDonald, I do believe he should change his nickname to I fought and beat two guys from The Ultimate Fighter and then Rory Singer kicked my ass' MacDonald," Singer said.
The humour backfired. After a slow start, MacDonald took control in the second round, working his way into the mount position and punching away until the referee stopped the punishment for a TKO at 3:18.
"I'm a pretty respectful person and I'm respectful towards my opponents. And when someone disrespects me, it just adds a little extra fuel to the fire," MacDonald said after the fight.
Going into this fight, Doerksen has also taken aim at MacDonald's punching ability.
"I don't think his standup is as good as he claims it is. I don't think that it's horrible, but I think that mine's better, He always talks about his standup game, and makes excuses for why he hasn't used it or why it didn't work. I fully expect that after I hit him with two or three good shots, he's going to be desperate to go to the ground. I'm counting on it.
"And if he wants to stand with me, that's great for me, that makes my night even easier. So my personal opinion is that he doesn't have a chance on his feet but again it's easy to talk. Doing it and talking about it are two different things."
Whatever happens Saturday night, it looks like there will still be some bad blood between the MacDonald and Doerksen camps.
"When I fight Jason, it's just going to be like any other fight. I have to take my personal feelings and set them aside for that night," said Doerksen. "Win, lose or draw, when the fight's over, I'll still dislike his manager."
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Well, it's got personal again for the mixed martial arts fighter from Red Deer, Alta.
Upset at disrespectful comments from Winnipeg's Joe Doerksen, MacDonald is riled going into an all-Canadian middleweight matchup Saturday at UFC 83 in Montreal's Bell Centre (available on pay-per-view).
Doerksen has provided plenty of fodder.
"Honestly, Jason's a talented fighter but as a fan I wouldn't consider him one of my favourite fighters," Doerksen told The Canadian Press. "I think he's a little bit more arrogant than he needs to be."
On his Rogers Sportsnet website blog, Doerksen added: "He's not as good as he thinks he is."
MacDonald has also bristled at reports of other Doerksen trash talk: suggestions that he was exposed in losses to Rich Franklin and Yushin Okami, and that he doesn't belong in the UFC.
When the fight was announced, MacDonald was not so keen on the idea, reasoning that he had already beaten Doerksen (in 2005) and wanted a new challenge. Thanks to Doerksen's mouth, he is now warming to the idea.
"Now it's a little bit personal, and if anyone questioned my motivation going into this fight before, they don't have to question it any more because I'm very motivated," said MacDonald, a tattooed former prison guard with a taste for motorcycles.
MacDonald says he has no problem with fighters talking up their own abilities. But he takes objection at signs of disrespect.
"Joe Doerksen is 1-5 in the UFC and he just got knocked out by a guy (Ed Herman) that I beat in the first round. So if you want a little taste of reality, that's the reality of it," MacDonald said. "Anything can happen in a fight and I know that, so I don't go around running my mouth off like Joe Doerksen's doing about me."
MacDonald won via by fourth-round submission when the two met at a UCW event in Winnipeg in October 2005. Doerksen had already fought three times in the UFC then. MacDonald was seven fights away from his UFC debut.
Doerksen maintains a bad cut in the first round of that 2005 fight affected his performance. The MacDonald camp apparently didn't share the opinion.
"His management and himself as well told anyone who would listen that I have no hope in hell of ever beating him, if we fought 100 times, I'd lose 99 out of a 100 and that the cut had no effect on the fight whatsoever, (that) Jason was just the better fighter. And I certainly took offence to that," Doerksen said. "I thought that was rather an arrogant statement to be making. I think he's almost delusional, but again that's just my opinion."
Countered MacDonald: "He must have amnesia and he's forgetting about what happened at our last fight."
UFC president Dana White is no doubt chuckling at the war of words. But he was relishing this matchup before the trash-talking began.
"That's a good Canada fight right there," he told The Canadian Press. "I don't know who I give the edge to."
MacDonald (20-9) is 3-2 in the UFC with losses to former champion Franklin and top contender Okami. Doerksen (39-11) is 1-4 with losses to Herman, Matt Lindland, Nate Marquardt and Joe Riggs (and Paulo Filho in the WEC).
"You look at his record and think, wow, this guy doesn't have that great of a record," White said. "Then you look at who he's fought and it's the who's who in that weight division."
Doerksen's last outing was at UFC 78 in November when he was knocked out in the second round by Herman. The 30-year-old Winnipegger took the fight on two weeks notice and suffered a broken orbital bone in the face after eating a knee in the first round.
"At first I thought it was my nose that was broken . . . I found out later it was a fractured orbital bone near the eye," he recalled. "But I definitely knew something wasn't right.
"Getting punched isn't necessarily pleasant but it tends to be painful after you can get use to it. For some reason, there was a lot of pain in my face that day after getting hit so I knew there was some damage down there."
A gamer, Doerksen almost finished Herman off with a triangle choke late in the second round.
MacDonald, 32, is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Okami at UFC 77 in October.
"Okami's a tough guy, man," said White. "A tough guy and very awkward to fight. If he doesn't beat you, he's going to make you look bad. He's just one of those guys that has one of those styles."
The fight before that, MacDonald smacked Singer around.
Singer, a quirky graduate of "The Ultimate Fighter" reality TV show, lived up his Outburst nickname at the pre-fight UFC 72 news conference when he suggested the six-foot-three, 185-pound MacDonald do some squats to build up his "skinny legs" and think about trying out for a male dance troupe -- because "he's a handsome man, he's quite sinewy."
Singer then took another jab at the Canadian, whose nicknames include TUF Killer after beating "Ultimate Fighter" alumni Herman and Chris Leben.
"After I beat Jason MacDonald, I do believe he should change his nickname to I fought and beat two guys from The Ultimate Fighter and then Rory Singer kicked my ass' MacDonald," Singer said.
The humour backfired. After a slow start, MacDonald took control in the second round, working his way into the mount position and punching away until the referee stopped the punishment for a TKO at 3:18.
"I'm a pretty respectful person and I'm respectful towards my opponents. And when someone disrespects me, it just adds a little extra fuel to the fire," MacDonald said after the fight.
Going into this fight, Doerksen has also taken aim at MacDonald's punching ability.
"I don't think his standup is as good as he claims it is. I don't think that it's horrible, but I think that mine's better, He always talks about his standup game, and makes excuses for why he hasn't used it or why it didn't work. I fully expect that after I hit him with two or three good shots, he's going to be desperate to go to the ground. I'm counting on it.
"And if he wants to stand with me, that's great for me, that makes my night even easier. So my personal opinion is that he doesn't have a chance on his feet but again it's easy to talk. Doing it and talking about it are two different things."
Whatever happens Saturday night, it looks like there will still be some bad blood between the MacDonald and Doerksen camps.
"When I fight Jason, it's just going to be like any other fight. I have to take my personal feelings and set them aside for that night," said Doerksen. "Win, lose or draw, when the fight's over, I'll still dislike his manager."
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