Jason MacDonald

Jason 'The Athlete' MacDonald is a Canadian mixed martial artist. He lives in Red Deer, Alta., with his wife Kelly and four children, boys Tristin and Keel, and girls Jett and True. He blogs regularly for Sportsnet.ca.

One of the big stories right now, across all sports and beyond, is the swine flu. It is a big deal, obviously, and is a concern for all fighters.

We've just seen Brock Lesnar pull out of his fight in November because he's been sick, possibly with H1N1. As fighters, we're always in contact with other people, and there's a lot of bacteria and germ-spreading going on. It's something as fighters we should all be conscious of.

It's a huge concern to me as I'm preparing for a fight in December. I can't afford to lose a week of training to the swine flu.

I know a lot about it personally. My wife Kelly is a nurse who works for public health. On Thursday she was administering the flu shots here in Red Deer, and it has definitely created hysteria. You wouldn't believe the lineups to get the shot. It's a five-hour wait in some cases.

I was planning to get the vaccination on Thursday. My eldest son Tristin already had it and he's recovering from it so we're doing our best to keep the rest of the family healthy. Fingers crossed.

That being said, I'm training to fight Solomon Hutcherson. It's a quick turnaround for me and a good opportunity to get back on track. Scratch that; back to winning, I should say, because I was already on track in my last fight. I felt like I trained well and I thought I performed very well against Travis Lutter.

I read these bogus articles on the MFC website asking, "Am I done? Am I finished? Has my gym and family life made me too busy?"

I disagree with these statements. I was away in Las Vegas for a month prior to the fight, where there were no distractions at all. So I felt I was well prepared and fought well.

This fight will be a very different fight than the one against Lutter. Hutcherson is very much a standup guy, a kickboxer. So the focus changes from doing everything to staying out of trouble on the ground to trying to put him on the ground and submit him. I'll be looking to put him on his back and take him out of his comfort zone.

I'm going down to Vegas again for the three weeks. I'll be gone for the last couple weeks of December and not coming back until right before the weigh-ins on Dec. 3. It will be a good opportunity to train with big guys and again get away from the distractions of home, business and family.

While I'm there, of course, I intend to go see UFC 106, as long as I can still get tickets. The UFC has always been gracious to offer me tickets ever since I've been cut.

But the even more exciting news for me was Wednesday night, when I got my purple belt in jiu-jitsu from Josh Russell. I was very proud to get that. We've been working for me to get it for a long time, ever since he came back from Brazil four years ago with his black belt. I was pretty honoured to be presented with it.

Finally, my thoughts on UFC 104. I personally had Shogun winning every round against Machida. Sure it was a close fight and they say, "You have to beat the champion to take the belt away." But I had every round going to Shogun, so in my mind, beating the champion in every round is beating the champion.

The only round I had that was close to going to Machida was the first. So I was pretty shocked when the decision was announced, as was everyone else at my house watching the fight. And then I got a bunch of texts saying the same thing. That seems to be what most people think. I guess that's why they're going to do a rematch.

I did think that Machida looked a bit off. I've said that many times, not every time a fighter steps in the cage are they going to have their best fight. Even the very best fighters. Look at Anderson Silva against Thales Leites. Look at Fedor against Andrei Arlovski. Of course, the hope is every time I step in the ring, I'm going to be better than I was the last time. But that's not the reality.

Then there was Cain Velasquez vs. Ben Rothwell. I thought it was an early stoppage, since Rothwell was in the process of standing up. That being said, he was taking a tremendous amount of punishment. And referee Steve Mazzagatti warned Rothwell in between rounds that he wasn't going to let him take a lot of punishment.

Rothwell was standing up and he was okay, but I think he was only going to stand up into a knockout. He was using his hands to pick himself up off the mat, so obviously he couldn't use them to protect his head and was completely unprotected. Two or three more punches and he would have been out.

It's a fine line, same as Paul Daley-Martin Kampmann fight. Do you stop the fight earlier and protect the fighter, or do you see him get knocked unconscious?

I know what the answer to that often is. Fans want to see a guy knocked unconscious, which is unfortunate. The referee is there for your safety as a fighter. Kampmann was out on his feet, but did he really need to take two more punches and get knocked out cold?

Finally, I just wanted to mention that fellow middleweight Chael Sonnen looked awesome. He fought a great fight against Yushin Okami and beat him from bell to bell.