After a long layoff, Rory MacDonald is back in business and this time it’s under the Bellator promotional banner that he will be plying his trade.

Speaking in Belfast, Northern Ireland earlier this week, MacDonald spoke about his return to the cage and admitted it was coming a little sooner than he had originally planned.

“It was earlier than I expected to come back,” MacDonald said. “I was expecting to come back in like say, July, but you see how I was feeling when the question was asked for the fight, I was feeling really good as far as the healing goes for my nose so I just felt confident with it so I took the fight.

“It took me about a week to sit on it and [think] is this really what I want to do, or take a later return to fighting, but I feel good and I’m ready to go.”

MacDonald severely damaged his nose during his fight with Robbie Lawler at UFC 189 and it caused him problems for the remainder of his UFC tenure. Having now taken time off to fully let it heal, the Canadian spoke about how miserable it made him feel being out of action.

“I would say it’s 100-percent, I really gave it the time it needed to heal like any bone would you know,” MacDonald said. “I don’t have any breathing problems and it was just a matter of time it needed to actually heal. This year I gave it that time and the year before I didn’t.

“I’ve been pretty miserable with it to be honest, it’s been a hard couple of years actually. I took some time off after the Lawler fight and then I damaged it in training. Then I took a fight trying to get back in there and I got hurt again so, you know, this year I had to take actual time off from training so it’s been a bit miserable for me.”

Having now got his return date set for May 19 in London, England against British welterweight, Paul Daley, MacDonald said he was overjoyed to be back and preparing for a big fight. MacDonald explained how he was expecting a win over Daley would set himself up for a title fight for the Bellator welterweight belt later this year. After that though, the Canadian said he’d be willing to fight anybody, in any weight class. 

“Yeah absolutely, I’ve been watching Paul for many years now,” MacDonald said. “You know we are in the same weight class, that kinda thing. I figured we’d definitely be meeting sooner or later.

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“Absolutely, this is a title contender fight. My plan here in Bellator is to fight the very best and I told Bellator any weight class—it really doesn’t matter to me. Obviously right now I’m going for the welterweight title and possibly the middleweight title, but after that it’s really about the biggest names and the most exciting fights.”

With MacDonald now back in fold and excited to make his Bellator debut, he spoke about what fans could expect from his return. Suffice to say, MacDonald was promising it would be an all action return and that he was heading to London on May 19 to show the fans a newer, more aggressive version of himself. 

“They can expect me to move forward in this fight—I’m going to be hunting him down,” MacDonald said. “I’m going to be coming forward every time he takes a step back and every time he takes a deep breath, I’m going to be in his face, pressing him and not giving him a chance to breathe until he feels like he’s drowning and has to give up.”