#2 Title shot for Wonderboy!
If his decimation of former Welterweight Champion Johnny Hendricks didn’t do it for you, then Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson surely convinced you of the legitimacy of his title aspirations with the performance against perennial contender Rory MacDonald.
Gangly, sprightly, and ridiculously accurate, Wonderboy’s striking arsenal at range was once again in full display as he outclassed one of the most well-rounded fighters in the UFC with consummate ease.
By the end of the fight, MacDonald was left nursing a broken nose that apparently hasn’t recovered since the Robbie Lawler fight, while Stephen Thompson solidified his claim to a shot at the Welterweight crown after Champion and Tyron Woodley dance at UFC 201.
By his own admission, Wonderboy figured from Rory’s opening stance in the first round that the fight would play out more akin to a chess match rather than a full blown war, and by golly, wasn’t he proved right?
Rory MacDonald hardly managed to get close enough to Wonderboy to keep him locked in the clinch or to take him down, and even when he did, he was met with solid intercepting strikes and an opponent extricating himself from the pocket like oil from water.
It was an emphatic performance from Thompson, who has fast grown into the poster boy for the “movement movement” that has set the MMA world alight in recent times. And few would dispute that it was also one that has registered him as a shoo-in for the next title shot.
