Rory MacDonald Wants To Be Dual-Weight Bellator Champ
Former UFC welterweight title challenger Rory MacDonald is looking to make a huge statement in his new home of Bellator MMA.
MacDonald left the UFC on a two fight losing streak which included a fifth round knockout loss to then-welterweight champ Robbie Lawler. “The Red King” was ahead on the judges’ scorecards and would’ve likely won the 170-pound strap had he been able to survive, but the abuse “Ruthless” continued to hit MacDonald’s broken nose with was too much for the Canadian too handle.
He returned just to the Octagon a year later to take on Stephen Thompson for another shot at welterweight gold, but was ultimately out-classed by the karate expert. Soon after the fight MacDonald made the decision to leave the UFC and sign with Bellator MMA, where he defeated Paul Daley via second round submission earlier this month at Bellator 179.
It was a bright start to the 27-year-old’s Bellator career, and he hopes to win both the promotion’s welterweight and middleweight champion as he continues forward in his mixed martial arts (MMA) career (quotes via MMA Fighting):
“I’d like to fight for the middleweight title maybe at the end of the year, if there’s a big card that we could promote and get me and the middleweight champion on there,” MacDonald said. “Obviously not looking past the welterweight championship fight. Just saying if everything goes as planned, if everything’s hunky dory, an end of the year show for the middleweight title would be fantastic.”
“Yeah, I’m hoping September,” he said.
As for his debut win over Daley, MacDonald was happy to get back on the winning side of things after his back-to-back losses to Lawler and Thompson. “The Red King” says that the victory made him feel like his old self again:
“I was in my moment, I was in my element there,” he said. “I fought like myself. I just never felt more clear and right going into a fight. Everything was just perfect for that fight. I couldn’t ask for anything better. And I’m just so stoked on just finally getting momentum, and now I get to go ahead and stay busy with my career, and keep getting bigger fights all the time.”
MacDonal carried a completely different mindset heading into his fight with Daley. Instead of looking to ‘outclass’ or outpoint’ his adversary, he now goes in wanting to ‘crush’ them:
“The Stephen Thompson fight was probably the worst for me,” he said. “The Jake Ellenberger fight I wasn’t thrilled with. There’s been a couple, thinks like that, where I feel like I outclass — like some of the fights I even won — like I outclass the guy, I outpoint them, but I never really go in with the mindset of I want to crush this guy.
“I want to destroy him in every single way possible. Just going in with that attitude and delivering. Sometimes I just was more happy with just outpointing and just showing my martial arts skill, rather than expressing what’s within me. I feel like I’m in tune with that now, and that’s what I’m going to deliver to the people now.”
