Report: Bellator Champions Gegard Mousasi, Rory MacDonald Booked for September

Breaking: Gegard Mousasi vs. Rory MacDonald superfight for Bellator middleweight title set for September -- https://t.co/kAO1YWyjMp

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) June 21, 2018

Newly-crowned Bellator MMA middleweight champion Gegard Mousasi will make his first title defense against welterweight king Rory MacDonald on Sept. 29 in San Jose, ESPN’s Ariel Helwani reported on Thursday.

Mousasi (44-6-2) recently won the middleweight title after finishing former champion Rafael Carvalho with first-round strikes at Bellator 200 last month, and called out his former Ultimate Fighting Championship defector immediately after claiming promotional gold.

Meanwhile, MacDonald (20-4) defeated former welterweight kingpin Douglas Lima back in January to capture the 170-pound title.

Sources close to the deal say the bout will be contested at 185 pounds and will be for Mousasi’s middleweight belt. Should he beat MacDonald, Mousasi would be the first fighter to hold two belts simultaneously in Bellator history. Mousasi has held championship belts in every MMA promotion he has fought for except the UFC, from Dream to Strikeforce and now Bellator.

Both men are former UFC fighters who made the high-profile move to Bellator, Mousasi back in July of 2017, while MacDonald signed a year earlier in August 2016.

Elsewhere on the card, bitter rivals Quinton Jackson and Wanderlei Silva will throw down for the fourth time in their professional MMA careers.