According to ESPN, Bellator has scheduled a fight between middleweight champion Gegard Mousasi and welterweight champion Rory MacDonald for September 29 in San Jose, California.
The fight, which has yet to be officially announced, will be fought at 185 pounds, meaning that MacDonald will have the chance to win Mousasi’s middleweight title.
Biggest Fight in Bellator History?
In recent years, Bellator has rarely been able to grab the spotlight away from the UFC. However, both Mousasi and MacDonald are considered among the best fighters in their respective divisions in the world, and both have previous success in UFC, making this not only one of the highest-profile fights Bellator has staged in recent memory, but also one of the highest-quality bouts in terms of the ability levels of the competitors.
The 32-year-old Mousasi (44-6-2) signed with Bellator last year after spending four years in the UFC. He has won his last seven fights in a row, including wins over Vitor Belfort, Uriah Hall, and Chris Weidman to end his UFC run. Mousasi captured the Bellator middleweight title last month when he defeated Rafael Carvalho by first-round TKO at Bellator 200 last month.
MacDonald (20-4) wasn’t quite as successful in UFC, losing his last two fights with the promotion. Still, he went 9-4 in over six years with the company, and has won both of his fights since joining Bellator. He earned the company’s welterweight championship in a unanimous decision victory over Douglas Lima in January.
According to the unofficial rankings of MMA website Sherdog.com, MacDonald is the world’s No. 5 welterweight, while Mousasi is ranked sixth among all middleweight fighters.
MMA Pound-for-Pound Stars
While MacDonald is generally regarded as one of the best MMA athletes not currently in the UFC, Mousasi is no slouch either, and will come into the fight with a definite size advantage, something he pointed out after he challenged the welterweight last month.
“He’s a big welterweight, but still, he doesn’t have anything over me that I’m impressed by,” Mousasi said on the MMA Hour in May. “Let’s say wrestling or standup, or he doesn’t have the reach, speed, the striking. So I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, MacDonald showed no hesitation in accepting that challenge. After Mousasi called him out in a post-fight interview following his win over Carvalho, MacDonald took to Twitter to make it clear that he was up for the fight.
“Myself vs. @mousasi_mma is the fight to make right now, so lets make this happen!?” MacDonald tweeted.
ESPN reported that a fourth matchup between Quinton Jackson and Wanderlei Silva would also be on the Bellator card in September. Silva (35-13-1) leads Jackson (37-13) 2-1 in the previous three fights between the light heavyweights, though their last bout – contested a decade ago when both were still in the UFC – was won by Jackson via a first-round knockout.
