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News leaked last night that Canadian welterweight Rory MacDonald was forced out of his UFC 152 bout with legend B.J. Penn due to a major cut above his eyebrow. MacDonald took to twitter last night to explain exactly what happened, and asked for the fight to be postponed to UFC 154 in Montreal in November:
(part-1) 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
— Rory MacDonald (@rory_macdonald) August 5, 2012
(part-2) be healed in time to fight sept 22 i am hoping that
— Rory MacDonald (@rory_macdonald) August 5, 2012@bjpenndotcom will agree to have the fight on a instagr.am/p/N7xPkCw0vQ/
(part-3) later date in november
— Rory MacDonald (@rory_macdonald) August 5, 2012
As usual, Penn took to his own website to respond, and it seems that he isn't interested in waiting until November. He wants to get down to business as soon as possible. Check out his response after the jump.
"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!"
That Rio card is UFC 153, currently scheduled for October 13th. Is that enough extra time for Rory to recover? UFC 153 is already pretty full in terms of top-level fights, so UFC 154 seems like a better option. We'll have to see how it all plays out.
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