Just over a month ago, Michael McDonald got the bad news. Yet again, he’d need to undergo hand surgery. ‘Mayday’ was coming off a knockout win of former Bellator champ Eduardo Dantas. It was one of the biggest wins of McDonald’s career 23-fight career. As it turns out, it will also be the last. McDonald announced Friday that he is retiring from mixed martial arts, the result of multiple hand injuries that have prevented him from competing on a regular basis.

In a statement on Instagram, McDonald said that he’ll focus on his woodworking business.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BoQYf6Sl63K/?utm_source=ig_embed

Elaborating on the subject to ESPN, McDonald added that “Most people, when they quit, it’s because they can’t hang. They’ve been beaten out of the sport and their family is sitting them down and asking them to please stop. For me, it’s not a matter of skill or being able to perform, but I’m at a point where the cost is greater than the reward.”

Following surgery in August stemming from the Dantas fight, McDonald also suffered a medical mishap. An anesthesiologist’s error resulted in his left arm being immobilized. “My entire left arm is about half the size of my right arm,” McDonald said. “It’s unusable. I can’t even pick up a cup of water. It’s possible my left bicep never comes back to use.”

McDonald, who says he asked God for a sign as to whether he should continue fighting, sees the situation as a clear answer. The former WEC vet, who challenged Renan Barao for the UFC’s interim bantamweight title in 2013, finishes his career at 19-4, with notable wins over Dantas, Brad Pickett, Miguel Torres, and UFC flyweight title challenger Chris Cariaso.

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Michael McDonald scored arguably the biggest win of his career at Bellator 202 on Friday. Yet the win carried a sombre note with it: opponent Eduardo Dantas suffered a horrific leg injury, rolling onto his ankle during the finishing sequence. McDonald had just dropped the former two-time bantamweight champion. Dantas’ leg appeared broken, and after the fight, McDonald revealed that he’d injured (and potentially broken) his hand as well.

Yet the hand wasn’t the only thing bothering him. “Emotionally I feel very good, physically I’m hurting a little bit,” he told Cageside Press and other media outlets post-fight in Thackerville, Oklahoma.

“Believe it or not, what hurts the most is my knee, from getting rug burn,” he explained. “If you look at the replay, while I’m hitting this guy, I’m just repeatedly smashing my knee, giving myself rug burn. So that hurts more than anything right now. Very strange.”

The rug burn won’t keep him out in the long run, however. The hand injury? That’s another matter. “I need to do a lot more thinking. As a follower of Christ my main priority is service to God and then to my family,” McDonald said. “It really does weigh on me wondering what my life’s going to look like with my family if this is how I am for the rest of my life. I really need to do some thinking, this is not a cool thing.”

Not cool at all. The Dantas win should be the biggest of his career, after all. Instead he’s left contemplating whether he’ll still have a career. “I feel like my life is kind of flashing before my eyes right now as this is happening,” ‘Mayday’ said, “this being my fifth hand surgery in five or six years, something like that. It’s not how I want to live my life. That’s not what I was expecting when I signed up for this. It hurts inside.”

It’s especially disappointing given how good his training camp went. “Training went flawlessly. Every single workout, I worked as hard as I could possible work, smart… the only way I could work any harder is if I was taking steroids,” he stated. “I was very happy with training camp, weight cut went perfect.”

On the plus side, it looks like Bellator will cover the cost of any hand surgery. “I’m super glad they’re going to pay for it, you just never hope that happens.”

Following a theme from our interview with McDonald prior to Bellator 202, ‘Mayday’ was hesitant to talk about title shots, even if he does stick around the sport. “I’ve never been like ‘I have to be the champ, I have to get this guy,'” he explained. “I don’t know what media requirements Bellator will have of me. I don’t know what the life would look like if I was their champion. Everybody wants to be champion,” he admitted, “but I don’t exactly know how much they’d want me to fight, I don’t know how much they’d want me to talk, or how much they’d want me to travel. I can’t say anything about it, because I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never been it.”

Instead of focusing on belts, “all that’s on my mind is just to do my absolute best, every single day.”

On the topic of opponent Dantas, McDonald took the injury hard. “I do feel bad for the guy,” he said. “I’m supposed to be celebrating, I’m supposed to be happy, and I potentially just ruined this guy’s life.”

“I hope he’s going to be fine. I hope he can recover. I’m not stranger to surgeries, hopefully he can get a good surgeon and be repaired too,” he added.

Don’t miss the full post-fight press scrum with Michael McDonald following Bellator 202 above.

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If ever there was a “proving ground” fight for a UFC star jumping to Bellator, it was Michael McDonald taking on former bantamweight champ Eduardo Dantas at Bellator 202. Dantas had twice held gold at 135lbs in Bellator MMA. McDonald, while in just his second Bellator fight, had tangoed with some of the best in the UFC.

McDonald opened the action with a kick, and seemed to settle in. ‘Mayday’ then landed a teep kick that set up a huge shot on Dantas moments later, dropping him! That right hand had Dantas floored, and McDonald swarmed like a bat out of hell. Blow after blow followed to the downed Eduardo Dantas, and finally, the ref had seen enough. The ex-champ would protest the stoppage, but didn’t really have a leg to stand on. Literally.

Michael McDonald, meanwhile, had put the Bellator MMA bantamweight division on notice with one of the biggest finishes of his career.

Replays showed Dantas rolling over on and quite possibly breaking his leg when being dropped. McDonald, meanwhile, said he felt his hand break during the fight, and wasn’t sure how much longer he could continue with his body failing him.

“I don’t even know what’s going to happen right now. I just want to get healthy,” McDonald said, adding that he wanted to get home to his wife, family, and church.

Michael McDonald def. Eduardo Dantas by TKO, Round 1, 0:58

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Bellator 202 takes place Friday, July 13 live in Thackerville, Oklahoma, and on Thursday, the full slate of fighters expected to appear weighed in. In the main event, Bellator women’s featherwieght champion Julia Budd will defend her title 145lb title for the second time. The Canadian will take on Talita Nogueira, in a match that’s been anticipated for the better part of the past year.

Check out video of all fighters weighing in below!

In the co-main event, Michael McDonald, one of Bellator’s bigger signings of late, will make his sophomore appearance for the promotion. Facing former bantamweight champ Eduardo Dantas, McDonald was faced with the opportunity to capture a title shot. On the flip side, Dantas could put himself right back in the mix with a win over the UFC notable.

In what seems like a rare occurrence, all fighters made weight for Friday’s card. The main card of Bellator 202 airs on Paramount Network starting at 9PM ET.

Main Card:

W. Featherweight Julia Budd  (144.1) (c) vs. Talita Nogueira (144.3)
Bantamweight Eduardo Dantas (135.5) vs. Michael McDonald (135.6)
Middleweight Chris Honeycutt (185.6) vs. Leo Leite (184.3)
Heavyweight Valentin Moldavsky (232.9) vs. Ernest James (261.1)

Preliminary card

Heavyweight Jon Hill (244.1) vs. Rudy Schaffroth (252.4)
Welterweight Fernando Gonzalez (170.7) vs. Tyler Ingram (169.9)
W. Flyweight Veta Arteaga (125.7) vs. Emily Ducote (125)
Welterweight Gerald Harris (170.5) vs. Yaroslav Amosov (170.2)
Lightweight Will Morris (155.5) vs. Charles Williams (153.6)
Lightweight Nation Gibrick (155.3) vs. Luis Erives (155.9)
Featherweight Aaron Webb  (144.7)vs. Daniel Crey (145.4)
Lightweight Steve Kozola (154.6) vs. Ryan Walker (155.9)

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Bellator bantamweight Michael McDonald is fighting former champion Eduardo Dantas on July 13 in a bout with major title implications. “Mayday” made his promotional debut last year after being a perennial top-ten contender in the UFC and challenging for the interim world championship. A shot at gold would appear to be next should he win at Bellator 202, but for him, it is far from what is most important.

After the turmoil of the last several years, the inconsistencies of the fight game have led to McDonald keeping his focus near-sighted. He states that he has not watched any of Dantas’ fights nor even those of current champion Darrion Caldwell. At the time of the interview, McDonald even stated that he was unaware that Caldwell was moving up to the featherweight division for his next bout in August. “When I get home from training and working on my skills, it’s family time. It’s time for me to be with my wife and focus on what’s more important. I do not make it a point to watch everyone’s fights and know what’s going on in the media. I didn’t even know (Caldwell) was moving up in weight class and I’m happy for it. It lets me put more time into the gym and to be with my family.”

“The reason I’m not a character, the reason I’m myself and I’m not willing to become a character at any price, no matter what that price would be, is because of my testimony.” – Michael McDonald

It goes against one of the unspoken rules of being in professional sports, to sound against the platform that gives you the attention that so few are ever granted. But McDonald isn’t compelled to play into the promotional machine. He doesn’t discuss fighting big names or winning the trophies that the sport offers. Why? Because he knows how easily all of it can fade away.

“Years ago, when I was going from the WEC to the UFC, I had a doctor tell me I had an aneurysm in my brain. I could never fight again. If I did want to fight, I would have to have surgery. There was a 25% chance I would die in surgery. There was a 25% chance the surgery would be successful and a 50% chance it would be unsuccessful. But that’s my testimony. God is the one that delivered me from that. There was nothing that I could have done. We worked for hours and hours and hours to get this fixed. It was a said-and-done deal, I was never gonna fight again. I hear God’s voice and he said ‘Pull over and give it to me. Give it to me.’ Within ten seconds of giving it to him, the head doctor whom I’d never seen before called me and says ‘Hey there’s been a mistake. You’re healthy and I’m going to sign your papers. You’ll have a long, great career. I’m so sorry for these morons.’ Three other doctors said I wasn’t going to fight again. Only God can do that.”

Today, McDonald makes it clear that fighting is supplementary to the life he already he lives. He has a successful business as a woodworker in Northern California and it gives him a stable income for his growing family. Even as his fighting career continues, he makes it clear that it is something he has no intention of stopping. “Just like Stipe Miocic is a firefighter and says he is never going to stop being a firefighter, I am a custom-woodworker. I’ve been woodworking as long as I’ve been fighting.  I’d say I’m just as good at it as I am at fighting. I have my own business where I’m the boss and I build custom cabinets. In general, that pays my bills from month to month and then my fighting checks become investable.”

The struggles of the last several years are well-documented. He required numerous surgeries to repair broken hands that contributed to a two-year absence in 2014. He also discussed the financial struggles of the business following his loss to John Lineker in 2016, telling ESPN that he could not afford the costs of a training camp and thus could not take a fight. McDonald went into discussions with the UFC but communication would eventually hit a wall and he was granted a release from his contract in 2017. He signed with Bellator quickly afterward.

The Modesto native spends hardly any time ingesting MMA as a spectator. “We [McDonald and his wife] don’t go to fight shows unless it’s for a job. I haven’t gone to a fight show for fun, like where one of my teammates wasn’t fighting, in about four or five years. I don’t watch fights on weekends or stuff like that. There’s a lot of changes that we’ve made, and honestly, life is better for it.”

A topic that comes up frequently with McDonald is timing and preparation. His UFC run, where he debuted as the youngest fighter in the company and later became the youngest fighter to ever challenge for UFC gold, has plenty of moments he has learned from. As he puts it, there were several times in his UFC run where he was more focused on the goals that he had set for himself rather than making the best decision. “When I was fighting in the UFC, there were several times where I fought far sooner than I should have. When I fought Chris Cariaso, I literally could not lift up my left shoulder. And I needed hand surgery so that was a fight I should have never done. It was the same with Urijah Faber. I was dealing with so many injuries and that should not have been a fight that I took. But I did, and I needed hand surgery afterward.”

McDonald only does what is necessary in terms of his digital presence. He admits that he has someone to help him run his social media accounts and funnels MMA-related communication through his manager. He knows that success will come with more requests on his time, but says that he appreciates where he is for the time being. “I like the amount of hours I have right now and I like the amount of involvement I have in the MMA industry right now.”

Being so close to a title shot, however, beckons the question of how the more reserved McDonald would approach possibly being a Bellator champion. Just as in other situations in life, he sees it as a situation he does not want to rush unless he is prepared. He openly states that he is not sure if winning the belt is something he is seeking at this time. “I honestly don’t know what it entails to be Bellator’s champion. I don’t know how many media requests they’ll want. I don’t know how many appearances they’ll want. So it’s not something I look forward to like, “oh I want to be there.” Because I don’t know what it would look like.”

The young prospect knows that there is a benefit to the attention that being champion would bring. “There’s a benefit there, of more people hearing my story that Jesus saved my life and that I was a broken sinner who wanted to die and now I’m not. Now I have a fantastic marriage and a fantastic life and I’m generally successful and enjoy the people around me. There’s a benefit that I can say that and that more people can hear me.”

Whether he hypes it up or not, there is a fight on Friday. Former champion Dantas would like nothing more than to win impressively and try to force a rematch with Caldwell. But McDonald sees the entire fight differently. “When it comes to fighting, people think the competition is me versus Eduardo Dantas and it’s not. It’s not me versus him. It’s really me trying to be the best me that I can be. You never win when you’re thinking ‘it’s me versus this person’ in my opinion.”

One might wonder, if McDonald is opposed to the public part of the fight game, then why does he continue to fight? He goes back to his faith, and to use the platform to spread the message that saved his own life. “This is why I do what I do. To hopefully introduce someone else to the God who created all of us and who saved my life multiple times. I just hope somebody else can be introduced to him and that’s why I do what I do.”

Michael McDonald will face Eduardo Dantas in the co-main event of Bellator 202 this Friday, July 13, on the Paramount Network.

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Bellator will be going back to the mid-west with an impressive double-header in Thackerville, Oklahoma on July 13.  In the main event, featherweight champion Julia Budd will look for her tenth straight victory as she faces dangerous contender Talita Nogueira.  Also, bantamweight stand-outs Eduardo Dantas and Michael McDonald will collide in a bout with serious title implications.

Women’s featherweight champion Julia Budd will be looking to make a second defense of her title after retaining the belt last year in a split-decision against Arlene Blencowe in December.  Budd is on a nine fight win-streak going back to 2012.  She made her Bellator debut in 2015 and won the inaugural women’s championship last March.  Notably, she defeated Strikeforce and Invicta FC veteran Marloes Coenen as well as Australian powerhouse Blencowe (twice) during her run.

Budd has suffered defeat only twice: at the hands of Ronda Rousey and current UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.  Both came within her first year of being a professional.  In recent years she has emerged as the best featherweight in the world behind Cris “Cyborg” Justino and last year drew interest as there were rumors that Cyborg could make the move to Bellator.

Talita Nogueira is a undefeated grappler who is best known for being the winner of the 2011 Brazilian jiu-jitsu world championships.  Nogueira made her MMA debut in 2009 and has finished all seven of her opponents, five of those victories by submission.  She made her Bellator debut last year with rousing first round submission of Amanda Bell.

In the co-main event, former bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas meets young stand-out Michael McDonald.  A veteran of the promotion since 2011, Dantas holds an impressive 20-5 mark that includes winning both the Bellator title and the Shooto 132 lb title.  Dantas defended the title once before losing it last October to current champion Darrion Caldwell.

After being touted as one of the brightest up-and-coming prospects in the sport, McDonald had a tumultuous 2017 as he parted ways with the UFC after being treated “very dishonestly and disrespectfully.”  McDonald had also discussed that after dealing with injuries and subsequent layoffs that he was struggling to fund his training camps to continue competing in MMA.  He made his Bellator debut last year with a unanimous decision victory over Peter Ligier in December.  It is expected that the winner of Dantas and McDonald would be on the short list of contenders for the championship toward the end of 2018.

Stay tuned to CagesidePress.com as more bouts are announced for Bellator 202.

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Michael McDonald finally made his Bellator MMA debut at Bellator 191, airing Friday on Spike TV. ‘Mayday’ signed with the promotion earlier this year, after requesting his release from the UFC. The bantamweight’s promotional debut was hotly anticipated, but it didn’t go down quite as planned. In advance of the bout the contest was switched to a 138lb catchweight. Opponent Peter Ligier came in at the bantamweight limit, while McDonald weighed in at 137.6 lbs.

Ligier, like McDonald, was making his Bellator debut at the event, which went down in Newcastle, England.

McDonald attacked the lead leg of Legier early, and dictated the action. He’d attack with a knee, and find a home for his left hand. Ligier answered back with a knee of his own later in the round, but McDonald was getting the upper hand on the feet. Later in the round, McDonald, with his opponent’s timing down, changed levels for a takedown. To Ligier’s credit, he was able to stuff the attempt initially. ‘Mayday’ however continued to press along the fence. Ligier would look to land a spinning back fist off the break, but fanned on it just as the bell sounded.

In the second, while continuing to counter-strike effectively on the feet, McDonald scored the first takedown of the bout. Ligier, however, was quick to regain his feet. He then initiated a clinch against the fence, and looked to land some knees. Later in the round, McDonald would score with a right hand followed by an uppercut, in what to that point were the most significant strikes of the round.

Early in the third, McDonald took the action down. He would stay active enough to keep the fight on the ground, while Ligier stayed busy on the bottom, adding elbows and even managing to cut McDonald open. Ligier would finally power back to his feet with ninety seconds to go, only to have McDonald immediately take him back down. He deftly avoided a guillotine attempt by the French fighter, and nearly had the back. Ligier, for his part, was able to reverse position, but it was too little too late. The judges had it for McDonald, and there was never any question.

After the bout, McDonald noted that he broke his hand at the end of the second round.

Michael McDonald def. Peter Ligier by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

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In a press release Wednesday, Bellator MMA announced that both Michael McDonald and Valerie Letourneau will make their long-awaited promotional debuts next month. McDonald, a top bantamweight Bellator signed earlier this year after he requested his release from the UFC, will headline Bellator 191 in Newcastle, England. Letourneau, a former strawweight title challenger in the UFC, is also on the card.

In the main event, McDonald (17-4) will face France’s Peter Ligier (8-1-1). Ligier will be making his promotional debut in the fight, having competed on the European circuit over the past few years. With eight wins in ten fights as a pro since 2013, Ligier has not lost since 2014, and is currently on a three-fight win streak. Among his eight wins are five stoppages.

McDonald, of course, was a top ten bantamweight who fought in both the WEC and UFC. Still just twenty-six, ‘MayDay’ last fought in July 2016, losing to John Lineker. Overall, he went 6-3 in the UFC, and faced some of the promotion’s best names in the 135lb class, including Urijah Faber, Brad Pickett, and Renan Barao. The Barao fight was contested in 2013, with bantamweight gold on the line.

Valerie Letourneau (8-6), meanwhile, will feature in Bellator 191’s co-main event. She’ll face TUF alum Kate Jackson (9-2-1), who is coming off a win in August over Colleen Schneider at Bellator 182. ‘Trouble’ won three straight at the start of her UFC career, earning a shot at then strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk. That title shot fell short, however, and she lost her next two. She then jumped to Bellator, who beat the UFC to the punch in opening a women’s flyweight division.

Bellator 191 takes place December 15 at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle, England. A heavyweight bout between James Thompson and Phil de Fries also appears on the card.

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McDonald (17–4) was a consistent presence in the top ten of the UFC’s bantamweight division, and fought for the interim UFC bantamweight title against Renan Barao at UFC on Fuel TV 7 in 2013. That fight, in which McDonald was submitted by “The Baron,” served as the card’s main event.

From that point forward, McDonald went 2-2 in the UFC, defeating Brad “One Punch” Pickett and Masanori Kanehara while suffering losses to Urijah Faber and John Lineker, the latter of which came in his final UFC fight. McDonald, who struggled with injuries towards the end of his UFC run, then asked for his release, citing the UFC’s “dishonest” business practices.

McDonald’s Bellator debut comes nine months after leaving the UFC, and well over a year since his most recent bout against Lineker, which went down in July of 2016 in the main event of UFC Fight Night 91.

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