To the chagrin of MMA fans worldwide, UFC president Dana White announced at the UFC on FOX 4 post-fight conference that Rory MacDonald would be forced to withdraw from his UFC 152 bout with BJ Penn due to a deep cut he sustained during training.
Shortly afterwards, “Ares” tweeted a long message to his fans:
“2day i was cut at sparring i needed 3 layers of stitching In total i needed 38 stitches Im very sad right now that i willl not … be healed in time to fight sept 22 i am hoping that@bjpenndotcom will agree to have the fight on a … later date in november.”
MacDonald is hoping for the fight to be rescheduled for UFC 154 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The 23-year-old rising star is a native of Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada.
While “The Prodigy” has no issue postponing the fight, he isn’t going to wait until November if he has his way. Penn released a response on his website responding to MacDonald’s injury.
“I am sorry to hear about the injury to Rory, this is a fight that got me out of retirement and one that I was looking forward to. I would like to wish Rory a speedy and healthy recovery and request a postponement of our fight to the Rio card. To Rory, let’s stay with VADA and continue through with the program from now until we fight! …Rory, with all due respect you challenged me to come out of retirement and I accepted. Then, you back out of the fight! Now you want to put our fight off for two-more-months, but this fight should happen as soon as the cut heals. 10-weeks from now is plenty of time. Let’s fight on Oct. 13th, that’s more than reasonable.”
MacDonald has not responded to Penn yet, but as always, the final decision lies with the UFC’s higher brass.
The fight has received additional coverage since both fighters agreed to Voluntary Anti-Doping Association testing last month.
What do you think fight fans, is Penn’s request unreasonable or is MacDonald just trying to ensure this bout takes place in his home country?
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