Looks like the hottest prospect in the UFC’s welterweight roster, Rory MacDonald, has suffered another injury setback weeks after he was forced to withdraw from a fight against Carlos Condit at this weekend’s UFC 158 event.
MacDonald, who resides in Montreal where UFC 158 was set to take place, injured his back and neck in training late last month and was quickly replaced by Johny Hendricks. Hendricks, who was meant to be facing Jake Ellenberger at the event, has himself been replaced by former Strikeforce welterweight champ Nate Marquardt.
However, according to Canada’s Sportsnet (h/t MMA Junkie), MacDonald has aggravated that same injury, which means he could be out a lot longer than previously thought.
“I don’t want to make any commitments to (how long he’ll be out) because I don’t want to rush his injury,” MacDonald’s head trainer Firas Zahabi said. “That’s what happened the first time. He got injured during the Condit camp, and they told us it would take two weeks. We took a week off, and he got reinjured. We should’ve done the full two weeks. We should’ve been more mature about it. We tried to rush the process, and that’s what happened.
“The second time around, I don’t want to make the same mistake. I don’t want to rush the process in any way.”
MacDonald is no stranger to injury. Last year he had to pull out of his scheduled fight against BJ Penn due to a cut, leading to a postponement of that fight until December when MacDonald destroyed Penn in Seattle.
Zahabi says that it’s MacDonald’s youthful enthusiasm that makes him so accident prone.
“He’s bummed out, but I told him, ‘Quit worrying. It’s going to happen. You’ve just got to train more intelligently,'” Zahabi told MMA Junkie. “We always go into practice saying, ‘OK, we’re only going to do this amount,’ and we always wind up doing more because he just wants to do more. But when your body cools down, you realize you did too much. I’ve got to try to teach him that and make him realize what’s going on.
“It’s a vicious cycle that keeps happening. Once he realizes what’s happening all the time, that’s it’s costing him more time, it’s not saving him any time.”
MacDonald has been looking to avenge his loss against Condit from 2010, the only loss in his career, which he has described as “humiliating”. But if or when that fight will eventually take place is still uncertain.
UFC 158, meanwhile, will go on without him this Saturday at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
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