Rory MacDonald “Heartbroken” After Announcement Of Lawler-Hendricks Trilogy Bout

Going in to UFC 181: Lawler vs. Hendricks, it was believed Rory MacDonald would be fighting the winner of the bout for the UFC welterweight title.

Things didn’t play out that way however.

A split decision win that saw Robbie Lawler awarded the UFC welterweight championship was not decisive enough in the eyes of many, and as a result, the UFC announced that Johny Hendricks would get the next crack at the belt that was formerly his.

Rory MacDonald was “heartbroken” to hear he was passed up for a title shot.

“I was a little bit heartbroken, but it’s okay. Even when I first heard the news that I was promised I was going to get the next title shot, I was skeptical. You can’t always believe what you hear. Things change so often in this sport, you’d be a fool if you believed everything that came out. So I’m not surprised that it happened. But I was pretty sad about it.”

While many people had different views on how they believe the bout should have been scored, Rory MacDonald believes Robbie Lawler won clearly enough that a trilogy match wasn’t warranted.

“Honestly I didn’t even – I thought Robbie won the fight pretty clearly in my eyes. I didn’t see why they would want a third fight, at all. I figured, you know, they would definitely want me to fight Robbie after that fight. So it didn’t work out. It didn’t work out like I thought it would.”

“I didn’t get [a reason]. They just said ‘you’re not getting it.’ That’s it. So it was a bit of a waste of my time going [to Las Vegas], wasn’t it?”

– via MMAFighting