A welterweight fight between Rory MacDonald and Hector Lombard is in the works for UFC 186 in Montreal, Canada on April 25th.
The fight is not official yet, but both fighters are believed to have verbally agreed to the showdown which may well serve as a No.1 contender bout at 170lbs.
The 25 year-old MacDonald strung together a three-fight winning streak in 2014, defeating Demian Maia, Tyron Woodley and most recently TKO’ing Tarec Saffiedine to move up to No.2 ont he official rankings.
Following that fight MacDonald was touted by the UFC as next in line for a shot at the title, but after Robbie Lawler and Johny Hendricks second title fight went down to the wire again they changed their minds and opted to put together an immediate trilogy fight instead.
MacDonald took the news in his stride, but with only one loss in his last nine Octagon outings the UFC can’t deny him a shot at the belt much longer and a win over Lombard would surely be the final hurdle he needs to overcome before getting that chance.
After mixed fortunes in the middleweight division after joining the UFC, Lombard dropped down to welterweight in October of 2013 and since then has found consistency with wins over Nate Marquardt, Jake Shields and Josh Burkman.
Those wins have secured him a place in the welterweight top 5 rankings, so he too will have title aspirations in mind as he heads into this fight with MacDonald.
It’s unclear at this stage whether MacDonald Vs Lombard is being targeted as the main event for the UFC’s first visit to Canada this year, but given the stakes and the fact that it’s MacDonald’s own backyard it’s certainly a possibility, or at the very least a strong co-main event.
