Rory MacDonald Secures First Round Submission Over Curtis Millender At PFL 2

PFL returns for their second consecutive week tonight, April 29, 2021, for PFL II – 2021, showcasing their welterweight and light-heavyweight talents.

Headlining the event is a welterweight clash between former UFC welterweight title challenger and former two-time Bellator welterweight champion Rory MacDonald, who faces former three-time FCOC welterweight champion Curtis Millender.

Co-headlining the event is returning welterweight champion Ray Cooper III, who won his 2019 season with a TKO victory of David Michaud.

Rory MacDonald is coming off a defeat to Bellator welterweight champion Douglas Lima, which was in October of 2019. Unfortunate for him, he signed with PFL before Covid-19, so he didn’t fight at all in 2020.

Curtis Millender on the other hand has fought twice since then, going 1-1, but he’s also coming off a defeat, to Sabah Homasi in August.

MacDonald was initially slated against 2019 finalist David Michaud, until doctors withdrew Michaud from the bout due to a newly discovered heart condition. Now we get to see the former Bellator champ against another fellow UFC & Bellator veteran.

Continue reading to see how this epic welterweight main event went down:

Official Result: Rory MacDonald def. Curtis Millender via submission (rear naked choke) at 3:38 of round one

Round 1

Millender comes out and throws a hard jab to start round one, before landing a nice leg kick not too long after.

MacDonald doesn’t do too much early on, as he’s finding his range. He threw a nice left hook, which partially landed, before shooting on a single-leg takedown.

Millender did not make this takedown attempt easy, he defended it for a good minute. MacDonald was trying to run the pipe, then he switched to try and trip him, and none of it was working. He’d clearly already spent a good amount of energy attempting this takedown, so he wasn’t going to be denied.

MacDonald eventually gets Millender down, takes his back, locks in the body triangle, and about one minute later, gets the submission finish.

Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

See Full Bio