Rory MacDonald Shuts Down Bellator’s Desired September Date For Welterweight Grand Prix Finale

Bellator welterweight champion Rory MacDonald is fresh off a big win, but was quick to shut down the promotion’s future plans for him.

MacDonald scored a unanimous decision win over Neiman Gracie at the Bellator 222 event last night (Fri. June 14, 2019) at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York on DAZN. This served as the main event of the show and semifinals of the Welterweight Grand Prix tournament.

Now, MacDonald is slated to fight Douglas Lima in the finals. The Bellator champion has stayed pretty active in 2019, but after competing twice in less than two months, he’s ready for a break. This break would need to come before putting his title on the line and fighting Lima.

That might be a problem as Bellator MMA President Scott Coker has already gone on record by stating that he wants the fight to take place in September. For MacDonald, he thinks that the timeline is unrealistic and elaborated on his mindset at the post-fight press conference:

“Yeah, it’s unrealistic for me,” MacDonald admitted. “I mean, I wish I could make it come true. I had a feeling they would want that. But it’s just not possible with what’s going on in my life right now, and the amount – I need to take some time to heal from these fights, from these training camps, so I could be ready for a guy like Douglas.”

In the mind of MacDonald, the fight taking place in either November or December works better for him to reclaim his energy for another training camp:

“Like December, maybe November,” MacDonald said.”

Check out the full Bellator 222 post-fight press conference here: