The Bellator Welterweight Grand Prix will continue to move along with the last quarterfinal bout to be booked, and I will offer my thoughts on this brand new matchup in today’s 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 the Bellator Welterweight Grand Prix if he chooses Jon Fitch in a yet-to-be-named event set for April 27 in San Jose, California. Marc Raimondi of all MMAFighting.com broke the information. This is the fourth and final quarterfinal bout in the tournament. Douglas Lima conquer Andrey Koreshkov in their trilogy struggle and Nieman Gracie upset Ed Ruth in the other quartefinal matchups completed thus far, together with all the Michael Page vs. Paul Daley fight set to occur in February. The winner of MacDonald vs. Fitch will take on Gracie on that side of the bracket’s semifinals, while Lima will combat the winer of Page vs. Daley.
MacDonald (20-5) is 2-1 so much in Bellator. In his first two Bellator fights, he looked like one of the greatest fighters in the world as he filed Daley and then beat Lima more than five rounds to win the welterweight title. Then he moved up in weight in his last bout when he took on Gegard Mousasi in his bid to be a rare Bellator double champion. However, MacDonald got defeated in that struggle, losing through second-round TKO. MacDonald will have had six months off between the Mousasi and Fitch fights, therefore he should be good to go health-wise. However, the fact that he took so much damage against Mousasi is painful. Then again, MacDonald was battling a weight class for the very first time. At welterweight, he is definitely among the very best in the world, and he even owns a dominant win over current UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley.
Fitch (31-7-1) has quietly made a run at the dusk of his profession. Currently 40, Fitch is riding a five-fight win streak at the minute which includes a dominant win over Daley in his Bellator debut. At the same time, Fitch holds noteworthy wins over Jake Shields and Yushin Okami during his latest win streak, and he had been the PFL welterweight champion before signing with Bellator. Since becoming cut by the UFC at 2013, Fitch has gone 7-2 in WSOF, PFL and Bellator. He’s no longer among the game’s elite welterweights such as he had been a decade ago, but he still has a solid wrestling foundation that can get him his hands raised.
That being said, this is MacDonald’s struggle to lose. He must have the takedown defense to maintain the battle on the toes, and at the standup there’s no wonder MacDonald is the superior fighter. Fitch has not won a fight by knockout since 2006, so he appears to have no path to victory in this bout if he can not get it to the ground. Even with the loss to Mousasi, I would still peg MacDonald about a -500 preferred to defend his belt against Fitch and proceed on into the next round of the tournament.
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