MacDonald puts his best leg forward
Fighter overcomes a gruesome injury to take Bellator MMA welterweight belt.
Rory MacDonald’s fortitude already was well known from his epic 2015 welterweight title loss to then-UFC champion Robbie Lawler.
Saturday at the Forum, MacDonald burnished his reputation by overcoming a gruesome, third-round injury to his left leg to wrest the Bellator MMA welterweight belt from Douglas Lima by unanimous-decision scores of 48-47, 49-45, 49-46.
“He’s the best fighter I’ve ever fought. Easy,” MacDonald said after surviving what appeared to be a leg kick that would’ve finished lesser men.
The bout preceded a far less gripping main event. In the opening fight of Bellator’s eight-fighter heavyweight tournament, Chael Sonnen scored three takedowns to edge Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, 29-28, on all three judges’ scorecards.
Sonnen (30-15-1) advances to meet the winner of the Fedor Emelianenko Frank Mir fight in April.
In the welterweight scrap, Lima (29-7) landed hard first-round jabs on the nose MacDonald broke in his loss to Lawler, then delivered his massive kick to MacDonald’s left leg in the final minute of the third round.
MacDonald initially tried to rise, but the pain made that both impossible and unwise, so he instead chose to survive Lima’s push to finish the fight by getting atop MacDonald and punching the challenger.
MacDonald limped heavily back to his stool at the bell, the damage seen in a grotesque lump on the leg that reduced MacDonald to being carried to his dressing room after the fight.
Looking at the leg afterward, MacDonald joked, “I think I have a person growing inside me.”
Lima took down MacDonald (20-4) to start the fourth, then kicked the wounded leg again, but MacDonald managed to find his way atop Lima to close the round.
After keeping ice on the leg throughout the break, MacDonald returned to get on top of Lima and delivered so many elbows to Lima’s forehead that the Brazilian bled heavily above his right eye.
“I came here my very best and this guy gave me a challenge,” MacDonald said.
The victory, accomplished with UFC welterweight Nate Diaz watching cageside, gives MacDonald a claim as MMA’s top 170pounder since he previously defeated both Diaz and current UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley.
Sonnen, 40, couldn’t seriously say he’s the world’s best heavyweight after Saturday, although the funspirited fighter said afterward, “I have the biggest arms, the most charm and cause the most harm.”
His punches in his heavyweight debut had little effect on Jackson, whose own strikes encouraged Sonnen to take the fight to the canvas.
Sonnen had three takedowns after earlier shaking hands with Jackson on a bet to earn $10,000 for each takedown. Sonnen spent most of the second round atop Jackson, who pleaded with the referee to stand up the fighters, to no avail.
Jackson, at 39, couldn’t land the volume of punches he could a decade ago as UFC light-heavyweight champion, and Sonnen advanced.
Earlier, in his first bout since losing his belt in June, former lightweight champion Michael Chandler shrugged off some early punches to the face by Goiti Yamauchi to fiercely land more damaging power punches and proceed to victory by unanimous decision.
Judges awarded Chandler victory by 30-26, 30-26, 30-25.
Chandler (17-4) closed impressively, knocking Yamauchi down in the third round and surging atop him to deliver a battering of punches to the head to clinch the one-sided decision over a fighter hyped as one of Bellator’s most dangerous.
“I don’t want to say I proved everybody wrong, but I proved them wrong,” Chandler said. “Everybody said he’s the toughest guy in the world…”
Chandler will be pointed to a rematch with champion Brent Primus, according to Bellator President Scott Coker.
“I’m a model employee,” Chandler cracked. “I do what I’m told.”