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.

Jason MacDonald defeated Solomon Hutcherson at MFC 23.

I was a little bit disappointed with my performance Friday, but I got the win and it's something to build on.

First of all, my hat's off to Solomon Hutcherson, he was much tougher than I gave him credit for. He was really tough to submit. I pretty much had him on the run the whole fight trying to submit him, but I wasn't able to.

Going into the third round I was exhausted after expending so much energy trying to submit him. My arms felt like lead weight with the way I tried to work those chokes on him. I just didn't have enough in the third round. I was disappointed with that round, but I still thought I won every round.

After the fight was over I was pretty confident I was going to get the win, but when the decision was announced I was baffled. You never want to leave it to judges, but I never expected that.

However, as I was leaving the ring, the commission stopped me right there and told me there was an error with the tally. Unfortunately at that point they couldn't announce it to the crowd because they had already started the intros for the main event.

It was literally just as I was walking out of the ring, so I hope nobody thinks there was anything fishy.

When I was out there to watch the main event, everyone in the crowd was coming up to me and saying, "You were robbed, you were robbed." I was telling people there was a mistake, but they asked, "Why aren't they announcing it?" I didn't know why the announcement took so long.

I was a little bit disappointed with my performance, but I got the win and it's something to build on.

When you get to the higher level of fights, it's harder to finish guys, and there end up being a lot of decisions. Look at Leites-Lister: Leites looked really good but he still couldn't finish Lister. Even Baker-Santoro. Short of a knockout, you see so many more fights going the distance. Definitely less utter dominations.

I'm not sure whether this win puts me in contention for the middleweight title. I heard they were thinking Bryan Baker vs. Thales Leites for the belt. It's not confirmed though as Mark Pavelich didn't say that. I think a fight against Bryan Baker would be a good fight where if I won it would set me up to fight for the title.

I was a little banged up the day after and a little tired. When I went for the triangle in the first round and he slammed me, I hurt my knee. It popped my knee a little as I was holding my foot. I was hobbling a bit, hopefully it's nothing serious. Though I was slammed on my head I knew it would happen so I was prepared for it. I kind of shrugged my shoulder so I was okay.

Because of huge storm in Alberta leading to loads of road closures, 95 percent of my friends who were coming to see me couldn't make it.

I ended up having to fly Josh (my trainer) from Calgary to Edmonton to corner me. He was going to drive down from his place in Calgary Friday morning but the roads and highways were shut down. And the highway from Red Deer to Calgary was still closed Saturday so he was stranded with me in Red Deer.

Josh walked into the venue just as Ryan Machan, who was fighting on the undercard, was walking to the ring. Josh literally jumped the barrier and walked in with him. It was big relief for Ryan to have him in his corner. His boxing coach couldn't make it, so that ended up being a bit of a stress for him.

But he came up big against Kajan Johnson. I believe Ryan is one of the best lightweights in the country and horribly underrated. He took out the 4th-ranked fighter in the country fairly easily. That just solidifies what we believe about him.

I was really proud of him -- it should be a turning point in his career. It's unfortunate that he isn't known well and hasn't even been put on the televised card in the MFC yet but people should take a big look at Ryan now.

I don't think we took anything away from Josh's fight against Kajan last month that we didn't already know, but that experience helped. Ryan was bigger and stronger than Kajan and I knew he had as good if not better stand-up. Even though Kajan dropped him, that was a fight, it happens. But Ryan recovered and was able to pick out the submission. That's classic MMA fighting.

Lastly, I just want to thank all my fans, and my sponsors especially, who stepped up and supported me in the bad economy.