Rory MacDonald Asks to Face BJ Penn in November, Penn Wants UFC 153 in Rio

Rory MacDonald and B.J. Penn still want to fight one another despite their bout being canceled for the upcoming UFC 152 fight card in Toronto.

On Saturday night, it was revealed that MacDonald had suffered a serious cut in training.

“Today I was cut at sparring. I needed three layers of stitching in total, I needed 38 stitches,” MacDonald explained on Twitter. “I’m very sad right now that I will not be healed in time to fight Sept. 22. I am hoping that BJ Penn will agree to have the fight on a later date in November.”

MacDonald also released a picture of the cut via his Instagram account that shows the graphic nature of the grisly wound that forced the cancellation of his fight at UFC 152.

Unfortunately for Penn, he found out about the news via Twitter on Saturday night, and went to his own website to release his thoughts about MacDonald dropping out of the fight.

“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,” Penn wrote.

As far as scheduling a new date, Penn targeted UFC 153 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil instead, but it’s unknown if MacDonald would accept that timeline instead of fighting in his home country of Canada as part of UFC 154 in Montreal.

“I would like to wish Rory a speedy and healthy recovery and request a postponement of our fight to the Rio card,” said Penn.

The UFC has yet to release any further information about Penn vs. MacDonald being moved to a later date, but all signs are pointing towards at least the fact that Penn will not remain on the UFC 152 against a different opponent.

MMAWeekly.com will have more information on this situation as it becomes available.

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