RORY MACDONALD VS JON FITCH SET FOR APRIL BELLATOR EVENT

Posted July 11, 2019

The Bellator Welterweight Grand Prix will continue to proceed along with the past quarterfinal bout to be booked, and I’ll offer my thoughts on this brand new matchup in the present MMA odds and ends.
Rory MacDonald vs. Jon Fitch, Bellator
Bellator welterweight champion Rory MacDonald will put his belt on the line from the quarterfinals of this Bellator Welterweight Grand Prix if he chooses Jon Fitch at a yet-to-be-named event set for April 27 at San Jose, California. Marc Raimondi of MMAFighting.com broke the news. This is the fourth and final quarterfinal bout in the tournament. Douglas Lima beat Andrey Koreshkov in their trilogy fight and Nieman Gracie upset Ed Ruth at the other quartefinal matchups completed thus far, together with the Michael Page vs. Paul Daley fight set to take place in February. The winner of MacDonald vs. Fitch will take on Gracie on the side of the bracket’s semifinals, while Lima will fight the winer of Page vs. Daley.
MacDonald (20-5) is 2-1 thus far in Bellator. In his first two Bellator fights, he seemed like one of the greatest fighters in the world as he filed Daley and beat Lima more than five rounds to win the welterweight title. He then moved up in weight in his last bout when he took on Gegard Mousasi in his bid to be a rare Bellator double champion. But MacDonald got defeated in that fight, losing through second-round TKO. MacDonald will have had six months off between the Mousasi and Fitch fights, therefore that he should be good to go health-wise. However, the fact that he took so much damage against Mousasi is worrisome. Then again, MacDonald was battling up a weight class for the very first time. At welterweight, he’s clearly among the very best in the world, and he owns a dominant win over present UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley.
Fitch (31-7-1) has quietly made a run at the dusk of his career. Now 40, Fitch is riding a five-fight win series at the moment which comprises a dominant win over Daley in his Bellator debut. At the same time, Fitch holds noteworthy wins over Jake Shields and Yushin Okami throughout his latest win streak, and he had been the PFL welterweight champion before signing with Bellator. Since getting cut from the UFC in 2013, Fitch has gone 7-2 in WSOF, PFL and Bellator. He is no longer one of the sport’s elite welterweights like he was a decade ago, but he still has a good wrestling foundation that may get him his hand raised.
Having said that, this is MacDonald’s struggle to lose. He must possess the takedown defense to maintain the fight on the feet, and at the standup there’s no question MacDonald is the superior fighter. Fitch has not won a fight by knockout since 2006, therefore he seems to have no route to success in this bout if he can’t get it into the floor. Even with the loss to Mousasi, I would still peg MacDonald around a -500 preferred to defend his belt against Fitch and move on to another round of the championship.
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