UFC 174 results: Rory MacDonald's next fight won't be for the welterweight title

The welterweight division is healthy with fresh contenders lining up around the block for Johny Hendricks' 170-pound title. Rory MacDonald's name was added to the mix when he put on a strong performance winning a unanimous decision over Tyron Woodley in the co-main event (highlights here) of UFC 174 last night (Sat., June 14, 2014) in Vancouver, Canada.

In fact, he felt like it was his strongest performance to date, as he talked about at the post-fight press conference:

"I think this is probably my best performance in my career so far. I gotta watch the tape but the feeling I have right now, you know, I'm pretty happy with myself except closing the fight, I didn't get the finish. Things went well."

UFC President Dana White had previously mentioned if MacDonald had a showing that blew his doors off, he might consider having "Ares" fight for the title next.

Well, he was watching and while he thought MacDonald looked good, he revealed to Ariel Helwani in an interview on Fox Sports 1 that previous plans to crown the next number one contender in the Robbie Lawler vs. Matt Brown fight at UFC on Fox 12 in July are not changing.

Sorry, Rory.

As for what he'll do next, "Ares" had this to say:

"I'm really not sure (what I'm going to do next). I'm going to just take some time now and chill out after this fight and see what happens. I'm not going to take a long break, that's for sure. I'll be around to fight."

His hope, in the end, is that Lawler and Brown will stink the joint up in San Jose next month and he'll slide right into that number one contender slot:

"It's not that I don't want the title shot. I want it to be clear that I want that but I respect the decision that there's two guys ahead of me that have been promised it. But if that fights a stinker, I'm ready to step in."

Stay tuned.