Rory MacDonald is set to make his Bellator MMA debut at Bellator 179 in the main event on May 19. The former UFC title challenger will have his hands full as he takes on the knockout specialist Paul Daley at the SSE Arena in London.

MacDonald spoke with BJPenn.com’s Chris Taylor on Monday’s episode of Rapid Fire about a few topics including his recent fight schedule.

MacDonald signed with Bellator back in August and has fought twice in the past two years. Taylor asked Rory if his recent hiatus was due in most part to the broken nose he suffered during his UFC 189 title fight war with Robbie Lawler.

“Yea well the first time I broke it was the Robbie Lawler fight. Then I jumped right back in to physical training and sparring and I just kept re-breaking my nose. So it kept pushing back my fights. Then obviously I had a dispute with the UFC over the proposed fight with Hector Lombard. They had changed some dates around and some venues (locations) around on me. So my fight ended up getting pushed back months and months further. So between that and the fact the my nose kept breaking it pushed things back a lot. Then this year, after the Stephen Thompson fight I actually took time off sparring and gave my nose a good amount of months to rest up and heal.”

Taylor also asked Rory to reflect on his UFC 189 fight with Robbie Lawler which was recently voted in a bracket style tournament as the “Greatest Fight in UFC History” by ESPN fans.

“Yea, well you know it was a crazy fight. Definitely the hardest fight of my life. It is cool that it is getting recognized as the greatest fight of all time. But really, it would have been nice to win that one you know. It was a close fight and I let it slip away. So that is unfortunate.”

Are you looking forward to Rory MacDonald’s Bellator debut? Give us your prediction for his fight against Paul Daley in the comment section!

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 4/19/2017.