Sherdog.com: Does it bother you that whenever you fight here in Las Vegas that the crowd is only a few thousand people and that K-1 here in America isn’t anywhere near as popular as it is in Japan or other countries? It’s nowhere near as big as it should be.

McDonald: That’s true, it is nowhere near where it should be. But the thing is that I think the promotion isn’t … I don’t know, but like with anything, you have to gamble in order to be successful or to make money. If you want to be like, say, Don King in boxing, you have to spend a little bit more money and not be somewhat [cheap]. You have to gamble and you have to take a chance. And if you do and something doesn’t go right, you can at least do better the next time around and critique it and not lose so much money. The fan base is so small but it really doesn’t bother me. They give me a bit of a boost when they start to cheer in the background, but once I get in to the ring and I’m inside those four corners, it’s just me and the guy in the ring.

Sherdog.com: You are the consummate fighter in K-1 and are the type of fighter who uses superb techniques. Does it bother you to see K-1 continuously tossing guys like Akebono, Wakashoyo and other non-kickboxing fighters into the ring? There are other fighters just as skilled as you, perhaps, who probably will never get a chance to display their talents, but sumo wrestlers will.

McDonald: You know, like the last show, which featured Akebono when he fought Kakuda. You know, Kakuda’s been done for years. Even though he’s been trying to comeback for a year or two years, he’s been done for, I don’t know, eight years. Whenever he fights or tries to win these fights, he always gets tested and he always gets knocked out, or he gets hurt or he just loses. But the Japanese, I don’t know, I guess they like the freak shows. They brought in Bob Sapp (Pictures) four years ago. Bob is not bad guy, but he’s not a fighter. But it’s something different for [the Japanese] and they like that. Maybe they don’t know what real fighting is and they don’t know what real martial artists are supposed to be like. I guess they figure that if you’re a big guy then automatically you’re going to beat the little guys. But it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t work that way all the time. So with Akebono coming in, to me it does nothing for the sport. You can’t have a sumo wrestler coming in to fight K-1. He can’t pick his leg up for crying out loud! And then when he runs out of gas after one minute, what’s he going to do? He just puts his weight against you and how are you going to win a fight like that? He walks around the ring and he’s like a big Amazon coming at you. He has no skill, no technique, so why do they want to give him a chance and pay him so much money when someone else who is a lot more talented should be given that money. Instead of giving Akebono, say $100,000, they can give two skilled guys $50,000 each. Why Akebono is in that star status, I don’t know. In K-1, Akebono is nothing but in sumo, he was Yokozuna, which means sumo champion. So, they gave him a chance and I don’t know why, but it’s something different for the fans. To the Japanese fans, it’s something great. But for the North American or the European fans, they’re thinking, “Who the hell is this fat f__k coming into the ring?”

Sherdog.com: What got you started in kickboxing, by the way, and how old were you?

McDonald: I was 21 and I started in Muay Thai.

Sherdog.com: Starting at 21 seems a bit late in life to pick up a sport such as Muay Thai. Were you naturally good at it?

McDonald: I was actually pretty natural at it when I first started out as far as my hands and stuff. I picked up a lot of stuff pretty quickly. I started working out in this school, this Chinese Kung-Fu, karate and kickboxing school. The guys I started out with were about 98 percent Chinese, a couple of key white guys and another black guy who wasn’t in shape. I was training with these guys like Billy Chow, who was a former world champion. But now he’s in Hong Kong making a lot of movies and making a lot more money, like seven digits, and Jimmy Chung who was a former Canadian champion. I started training with them but not with them; I was just in the same gym. I remember this one guy wrote up a little program for me and then I had knowledge of what I was supposed to do. I basically just tried to follow the program like doing three rounds on this thing, then on the speed bag, this bag and that bag. As far as them actually watching me to make sure that I was doing the right thing, they never did that for me. Then a couple months later, I remember them coming up to me and telling me that I had to fight. They never knew how I sparred, how I trained. They never knew anything about me but I felt that I had enough speed. I didn’t have anything, but I had good speed. I could hit you many times in the face and I was able to throw many punches, many kinds of punches. As far as combinations and stuff, I didn’t really have that but I could really let my hands go. I knew I had at least that going for me. Even when I sparred a few times with Jimmy at the height of his career as a professional fighter, I could hit him many times and he was shocked. I just didn’t have that technique to throw the power behind it or anything nice, I guess you’d say.