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Michael McDonald: "Yeah, yeah."
Fightful: Is it a pain in the ass to have your name? And be in the public spotlight? Because you know exactly what I mean.
McDonald: "Michael McDonald amongst the other Michael McDonalds in the world?"
Fightful: Yes. Even in combat sports!
McDonald: "Yes."
Fightful: Your name is the subject in The 40 Year Old Virgin, I'll never forget where Paul Rudd walks in and says 'if you play this Michael McDonald movie one more time I'm gonna burn the place down.'
McDonald: "Yeah. You know, amongst my, I have a lot of older friends at church, I'm involved in a lot of men's groups and recovery meetings and all this kind of stuff like that. A lot of them are older men. For one, it's a conversation piece amongst me and my friends. They'll always say, 'oh, you should come out to this Michael McDonald song,' and all this kind of crap like that. We joke around about it. The only thing is I have to tell people when they look me up, all the time, I get friends at church who are like, 'dude, I looked you up, I can't find you!' Dude, you know how many Michael McDonalds there are? You've got to say Michael McDonald MMA, or you gotta say Michael 'Mayday' McDonald to get all the stuff you need. So it's not that bad, it's not that hard."
WIKI: Your Wikipedia lists you as 5'8". This is always an interesting one because I interview a lot of pro wrestlers, and their heights are always jacked up because, you know, it's what pro wrestling does. Is that accurate?
McDonald: (True) "Yes. I'm a little over 5'8". I've measured myself a couple of times, and to my knowledge I've come in anywhere from 5'8" and a half to 5'9"."
Fightful: Yeah, depends on what time of the day you're doing it too.
WIKI: You trained at Oakdale MMA. Are you still there?
McDonald: (True) "I am, yes. I'm probably going to be there forever."
WIKI: And that you're a BJJ black belt.
McDonald: (True) "I am, yes, under the Brazilian -- under the Behring method. My teacher is Tom Theofanopoulos, his teacher is Professor Rob Handley, and then his direct teacher is Grandmaster Flavio Behring which was a direct student of Helio Gracie."
WIKI: You started training in kickboxing at the age of ten, turned to MMA at thirteen, started your amateur career at fourteen. If that is true, where the hell do you get approved to fight as an amateur at fourteen?
McDonald: (True) "Smokers, man. You don't need no approval. I just needed a parent's permission slip, is what I needed. Yeah, I started fighting at kickboxing shows at fourteen, and also amateur MMA, which was at that time was pankration, CAMO wasn't around at that time. CAMO, sorry, CAMO is the California Amateur MMA Organization, something like that. There was no sanctioned amateur MMA at that time, so you just, you put on a show and you'd be like hey, we're gonna put on a show, and I'm going to call six different schools, and we're going to put something together and put some seats here and there's not going to be any winners or losers because you can't legally do that for an unsanctioned show. We're just going to beat each other up."
Fightful: Like "exhibitions."
McDonald: "Exactly, exactly what it was called. Smokers, yeah. So that's what I did."
WIKI: You graduated in 2009 from Grace M. Davis High School, where you were voted 'Best Athlete' and 'Most Likely to Succeed'.
McDonald: (True) "The 'Most Likely to Succeed' was true. The 'Best Athlete' ... it's not like in the yearbook, 'best athlete,' in my yearbook it had 'Most Athletic' and I didn't win that. But there was a newspaper article in my high school newspaper that listed the best athletes in school, and I had number one slot, my best friend had the number two slot."
Fightful: Did you play any other sports in high school or was it strictly MMA, combat-related?
McDonald: "Yeah, that was the funny thing, because I was recognized as the best athlete in school and I never once in my entire life competed in a school sport."
Fightful: I was wondering! Because you where into this way early. You were doing the smokers ...
McDonald: "Everyone knew about me."
Fightful: Yeah.
McDonald: "Everybody knew about my MMA, and I didn't talk about it, but my friends talked about it, you know? When you start competing against grown men at fourteen, your friends start talking about it, and then before you know it the whole school knows just because they don't ... they have big mouths, you know. So you know, by the time I was a senior, the whole school would watch my fights and when I won my title, I'd bring it in my backpack and show everybody at school and all that kind of crap like that, you know."
Fightful: Yeah, I had a teammate who when he was fourteen he would compete against adults regularly at grappling tournaments, and when he went up to shake their hands, he would make sure to say, 'hey, I'm fourteen,' just to mess with them. Just to like, kind of get in their heads. Michael, best of luck, and I want to thank you so much for taking the time.
Vince Russo
EC3
The Pope/Elijah Burke
Chael Sonnen
"The Hurricane" Shane Helms
Muhammad Hassan
Colt Cabana
Jack Swagger
Michael McDonald