Rory Macdonald Belongs in Today's UFC - James Toney Does Not

"What would happen if a wrestler fought a boxer in a martial arts fight?" That was the question on everyone's lips in 1978 when Muhammad Ali met Japanese wrestler Antonio Inoki. The answer as it turned out was "very little." Fans were left asking for their money back as the two battled to a boring stalemate.

That was over 30 years ago and well before the birth of competitive mixed martial gradually silenced such questions. In the modern era, martial artists from all backgrounds have come to realize one very simple truth—that one dimensional fighters will not prosper in elite MMA.

MMA has evolved to the extent that boxer vs wrestler style matchups are now thankfully a thing of the past. Fighters might still specialize in one particular element of MMA but in order to compete at the very highest level they need to be competent in all of them.

On Saturday we got a glimpse at the future of MMA. Rory Macdonald began training in mixed martial arts at the age of 13. He is one of the first fighters to emerge in the UFC to have started training specifically for MMA at an early age.

Macdonald effectively has an eight-year head start on anyone who wrestled in college and then took up MMA afterwards, which seems to be the predominant background of fighters in today's UFC.

As fighters emerge who have been training in MMA from a younger and younger age and training techniques evolve, the standard of MMA at every level is going to improve accordingly.

In the future, the UFC could conceivably consist of entire divisions full of fighters of the calibre of Anderson Silva or Georges St Pierre. As the talent pool from which the very best MMA fighters emerge widens, so the criteria for entrance into the UFC, and any top MMA promotion, is going to become stricter.

Unfortunately, it seems that some promoters simply cannot resist a freak show-style matchup. The decision to first sign James Toney and then propel him straight into a fight with Randy Couture is a rare forage into freak show territory for the UFC.

I have nothing against boxers making the transition into MMA, but I object to a 41-year-old fighter with no previous experience being given a shot against one of the biggest names in the sport. As Toney's opponent Randy Couture has demonstrated, it is still possible to fight well into your 40s, but I think 41 is a little late in life to start learning the ground game if you are aiming to compete at the very highest level.

I hope Couture makes short work of Toney at UFC 118. Fighters like Rory  Macdonald are the future of MMA. Fights involving the likes of James Toney belong in the past.