Rory MacDonald
One of Canada’s greatest mixed martial artists, [autotag]Rory MacDonald[/autotag] came ever so close to winning a title in one of the greatest fights in UFC history.
He entered the promotion undefeated, but suffered his first career blemish in just his second UFC fight with a TKO loss to Carlos Condit. After that, MacDonald tore through the welterweight ranks with wins in eight of his next nine. The lone loss came to Robbie Lawler. After defeating Demian Maia, Tyron Woodley and Tarec Saffiedine, MacDonald got a shot at then-welterweight champion Lawler, the last man to beat him.
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His fight with Lawler at UFC 189 marked one of the greatest back-and-forth battles in the promotion’s history. Three judges had MacDonald up 3-1 heading into the fifth round. But after taking an incredible amount of damage to his face, MacDonald took one final blow that shattered his nose and dropped him to the canvas. Lawler swarmed him and the referee stopped the fight. He was four minutes away from winning the UFC title in a valiant effort.
After dropping his next fight to Stephen Thompson, MacDonald decided to make a surprise move to Bellator, where he quickly won the promotion’s welterweight title. He attempted to move up in weight to take on fellow UFC veteran and then-middleweight champ Gegard Mousasi, but was quickly shut down in the second round. MacDonald lost his 170-pound title to Douglas Lima in his most recent outing and subsequently left the promotion for the PFL.
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