GSP: MacDonald shouldn’t care about critics

Canadian welterweight Rory (Ares) MacDonald, under fire in some quarters for the manner of his UFC win Saturday, has got a vote of confidence from champion Georges St-Pierre.

SEATTLE — Canadian welterweight Rory (Ares) MacDonald, under fire in some quarters for the manner of his UFC win Saturday, has got a vote of confidence from champion Georges St-Pierre.

MacDonald (15-1) received criticism from UFC president Dana White and others for not taking the fight to Jake (The Juggernaut) Ellenberger en route to a comfortable victory via decision.

MacDonald and trainer Firas Zahabi, who also coaches St-Pierre, both said they executed their game plan against a dangerous counter-puncher. And that the onus was on Ellenberger to come out of his shell after MacDonald pulled ahead.

St-Pierre agreed.

"He shouldn’t care about the critics," the champion said in a text Sunday to The Canadian Press. "You don’t brawl with a brawler.

"It was up to Ellenberger to open up and take more risk because he was losing and he didn’t. Rory fought a great fight and even made it look relatively easy."

St-Pierre and MacDonald train together at Montreal’s Tristar Gym.

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.