RORY MACDONALD VS JON FITCH SET FOR APRIL BELLATOR EVENT

The Bellator Welterweight Grand Prix will continue to move along with the past quarterfinal bout to be reserved, and I will give my thoughts on this 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 in the quarterfinals of the Bellator Welterweight Grand Prix if he chooses Jon Fitch at a yet-to-be-named event set for April 27 in San Jose, California. Marc Raimondi of MMAFighting.com broke the information. This is the fourth and final quarterfinal bout in the championship. Douglas Lima conquer Andrey Koreshkov within their trilogy fight and Nieman Gracie upset Ed Ruth in the other quartefinal matchups completed thus far, together with the Michael Page vs. Paul Daley fight set to occur 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 so much in Bellator. In his first two Bellator fights, he seemed like one of the best fighters on the planet as he submitted Daley and beat Lima more than five rounds to win the welterweight title. Then he moved up in his last bout when he took on Gegard Mousasi in his bid to become a rare Bellator double winner. However, MacDonald got defeated in that struggle, losing via second-round TKO. MacDonald will have had six months between the Mousasi and Fitch fights, so that he should be good to go health-wise. However, the fact he took so much damage against Mousasi is worrisome. Then again, MacDonald was battling a weight class for the first time. In welterweight, he is definitely among the very best on the planet, and he 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 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 was 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 has a solid wrestling foundation that may get him his hand raised.
That being said, this really is MacDonald’s struggle to lose. He must possess the takedown defense to maintain the fight on the feet, and in the standup there is no question MacDonald is the exceptional 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 to the ground. Even with the reduction to Mousasi, I would nevertheless peg MacDonald around a -500 favorite to defend his belt against Fitch and proceed on to another round of this tournament.
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