How magnificent was the UFC welterweight championship battle between Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald on Saturday night at UFC 189?
The bout was such an epic encounter that the new king of Las Vegas, Conor McGregor, felt compelled to pause from his own, well-earned victory lap to toss plaudits at the warriors who took to the cage at the MGM Grand Garden Arena immediately before him.
“That Robbie and Rory fight was absolutely phenomenal," McGregor said at the post-fight news conference. "I must pay my respect to that. Two absolute warriors took every shot and still came forward. This is what this sport is about. What a night of fighting.”
On any night except for Saturday, when McGregor capped the show with a dramatic comeback victory over Chad Mendes in front of a throng of delirious Irish fans, Lawler’s fifth-round TKO victory over MacDonald to retain his championship would have been the unquestioned lead story coming out of the evening.
But when the dust settles and the initial post-fight buzz subsides, the five-round battle full of twists and turns will likely be remembered on a shortlist of the greatest battles in UFC history, right up there with the likes of Dan Henderson vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 139 in 2011 and Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165 in 2013.
It all left UFC president Dana White, who has been cageside for all of the UFC’s classic battles, shaking his head as he recounted the bout’s twists and turns.
"If you look at Rory MacDonald, his nose was broken in that first round," White said. "He couldn't breathe, couldn't see, continued to fight, and it's looking like a one-sided clinic. Then he hurts Robbie Lawler, then he follows up with like 10 head kicks and doesn't finish Lawler. Lawler hangs in there and makes it through that.”
After a slow build in the opening rounds, the fight hinged on two dramatic turns. Lawler appeared to be running away with the fight in the third round, but MacDonald found another gear late. As MacDonald poured it on during the round’s closing seconds, he nearly finished the fight. But Lawler, his back to the fence, swung blind bombs and created just enough space to survive until the horn.
MacDonald continued to go for the kill in the fourth, but he ran out of steam and Lawler turned up the heat. Both fighters glowered at one another at the end of the round and needed to be ushered back to their corners.
Lawler couldn’t have known he was down 39-37 on all three cards heading into the fifth, but he fought like someone who needed a finish, which he provided at the 1:00 mark with a straight left hand.
Following the bout, the usually stoic Lawler displayed more emotion than he’s ever shown in public over the course of his career.
"That was the culmination of a beatdown," Lawler said in his in-Octagon interview. "That wasn't one punch, that was the culmination of years of fighting coming to fruition.”
It was the sort of performance that had past and potential future opponents buzzing. Respected welterweight contender Matt Brown, who went five rounds with Lawler last summer in a unanimous-decision loss, had a memorable performance of his own at UFC 189 with his first-round submission finish of Tim Means. But even he felt compelled to comment on what he saw.
“Beautiful fight, amazing fight,” Brown said. “Both of those guys are warriors from beginning to end, and I love it, and those are the kind of guys I want to fight. I think me and Hendricks are the only ones to go the distance with Robbie, so I know that I can be at that level. I know that I can win that fight, and I know a lot of people want to see that fight because that’s going to be another war.”
Of course, there are two ways to look at these sort of bouts. On one hand, they represent everything fans love about combat sports: Skill, valor, courage under adversity, and above all, sportsmanship. Fight fans love few things more than a mutual show of respect after battle, and indeed, an Instagram photo of Lawler and MacDonald smiling together in the hospital afterwards went viral in short order.
But there’s the other side of this fight: the human toll the bout takes. Lawler came out of the matchup with a deeply split lip and two swollen eyes, and he was the winner. MacDonald, meanwhile, fought for the better part of four rounds with a broken nose. The punch that ended the bout on the spot likely made his injury significantly worse. Oh, and MacDonald suffered a broken foot, too.
"Robbie Lawler's lip, if you could've been in the Octagon and saw this lip, he would talk and this part of the lip would move and the other part wouldn't. [MacDonald's] nose was broken. They asked him, when Rory got out back, they said, ‘what year is it?' He didn't know what year it was. First of all, it was a war. And a complete display of chin, heart, grit, dogged determination, and the will to win from both guys. When you talk about [the best] fights ever, that's what I'm talking about.”
On the surface, Lawler vs. MacDonald, which was a rematch of a tight split decision won by Lawler at UFC 167, was such an enchanting encounter that it seemed to beg the rarest of trilogy fights – the one in which the bout somehow makes sense, even though one guy has taken both fights.
But given the level of damage the ultra-tough MacDonald absorbed, it’s fair to ask whether the Montreal transplant will ever again be the same as a fighter.
That was first and foremost on White’s mind in the immediate aftermath of the bout.
"Guys who know the fight business and have been around a long time, a fight like tonight can change you," White said. "We'll see what Rory's got when he comes back, but right now he's the second baddest dude in the world in the 170-pound division.”
Follow Dave Doyle on Twitter: @DaveDoyleMMA
