Rory MacDonald made a statement to the rest of the welterweight division with a dominant second-round TKO victory over Che Mills in the co-main event of UFC 145. Mills started well, landing some kicks and and stunning the 22-year-old with an uppercut, but he was no match for MacDonald on the floor. "Ares" brutalized Mills with ground and pound for the rest of the first round and all of the second until he finally got the stoppage at 2:20 of the middle stanza. It was probably the best performance of MacDonald's UFC career so far.

Mills landed strikes of the fighter with two solid leg kicks and walked down MacDonald to connect with a nice right hook. Mills then landed a nice uppercut that stunned MacDonald briefly, which led to a MacDonald takedown. Rory opened up with some brutal ground and pound, and moved to side control. Mills was bleeding from a cut on his face. MacDonald locked up a mounted crucifix and landed a ton of undefended shots to Mills' face. Mills powered out of it, but MacDonald maintained side control and continued his assault. Rory advanced to mount with 35 seconds in the round. Mills rolled to his back and MacDonald looked for the choke, but the round ended with Mills face all kinds of messed up.

Mills looked to establish his jab to start the second round, but MacDonald scooped a single leg, put it on the ground, and moved to side control. After another 15 seconds, he moved to mount. Mills immediately rolled over to his back. MacDonald unloaded with some serious ground and pound and Mills was unable to defend, so the referee was forced to stop the bout.

MacDonald entered the bout on a two-fight winning streak, with the last win coming via TKO over Mike Pyle at UFC 133 last August. Che Mills was looking to build on his excellent UFC debut, a 40-second TKO of Chris Cope at UFC 138.

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