UFC 145 Fight Card: Why Rory MacDonald Will Destroy Che Mills

I could save you some time by simply stating that Rory MacDonald is a much better mixed martial artist than Che Mills is, and suggest that that's why he will win when the two square off at UFC 145 this Saturday.

But you did voluntarily decide to read this so I'll elaborate a little. All for you.

Mills is a striker. His best tool, by far, is his quick hands and feet, which he used to stop Chris Cope in his promotional debut.

MacDonald is a good striker also. In fact, he is a better striker than Mills. He also is a very good wrestler—better than Mills—and owns a deadly ground game, which is another advantage he holds over Mills.

MacDonald is more athletic than Mills, trains with better fighters—Georges St-Pierre for example—and does so under the tutelage of Firas Zahabi.

MacDonald has more UFC experience than Mills does, he has competed against better competition than Mills has and he also happens to be bigger and stronger.

Half of MacDonald's wins have come by way of submission, while three of Mills' four losses have been via submission, suggesting that MacDonald is a bad stylistic matchup for him.

This scroll of advantages that lean MacDonald's way have led some to suggest that the UFC hand-picked Mills so that MacDonald could get another win and some experience under his belt.

These insinuations are far from outrageous and whether or not they are accurate, it should be noted that playing the promotional game that way is very dangerous indeed. 

See EliteXC and Kimbo Slice about that one.

Mills is no walk in the park. Despite being generally outclassed by MacDonald, he does have a chance to pull off an upset and bring the young Canadian back down to Earth. That's just the nature of the fight game, and if the UFC is playing at building a star, it could come back to haunt them.

Or maybe they just think really highly of Mills? Highly enough to expect a close contest with the promotion's top prospect in the co-main event of the year's biggest event to date.

Errr...probably not.

But that doesn't mean Mills cannot win. Crazier things have happened. On Saturday night, however, don't expect anything too crazy.

MacDonald rolls to a first-round win over Mills, probably by submission, but technical knockout is far from out of the question.

Then on to bigger names and bigger fights.