Zahabi: No chance of MacDonald fighting BJ at UFC 153
During this weekend’s phenomenal UFC on FOX 4 UFC President Dana White received an urgent message: Rory MacDonald sustained a large cut in…
During this weekend’s phenomenal UFC on FOX 4 UFC President Dana White received an urgent message: Rory MacDonald sustained a large cut in training, and was out of the planned UFC 152 fight with BJ Penn.
This is the cut:
This is one of the UGers who thought this was part of a conspiracy to pull out of the fight. The UGer’s cat, Fedor Slice, could not be reached for comment.
Both BJ and Rory want the fight to be rescheduled, but there is conflict on the timing, as seen in the Twitter exchange below. Penn wants it moved from UFC 152 to UFC 153 in Rio on Oct. 13. MacDonald wants UFC 154 in his home city of Montreal on Nov. 17.
Rory MacDonald@Rory_MacDonald
“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”
BJ Penn @bjpenndotcom
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’s coach Firas Zahabi said the earlier fight is a non starter.
The thing is, Rory’s cut is to the bone and there’s three layers of stitches,” said Zahabi. “There’s stitches on the inside layer and the outside and the eyebrow. So the doctor says no contact at all for one month and that doesn’t mean he can start sparring after a month – he cant get punched there for a while, longer than a month.
He can start to do technique and wrestling after a month but we are not planning on putting a headgear on him until the first of October. Anything before that would be too early and the chances of Rory getting a new cut would be too high, its too dangerous.
A cut is a cut but 38 stitches is a massive cut, its not a regular cut where you get ten or twelve stitches and it heals after a few weeks. This is a massive cut, it went internal, all the way to the bone. So you could see the bone of his skull after he got cut.
That’s why there’s so many stitches – 38 over three layers, that’s why he cant even have any contact at all for one month. Can’t even drill. And after a month he can start technical movements – armlocks and toeholds on the ground, wrestling manoueuvres.
But he cant get punched. It will be another month a half before we put a headgear on him. And by put a headgear on him I mean making him box. Because if we get another punch on it, its going to reopen. So it will be a while before we can get the headgear on him.
I want what the UFC wants. As a trainer I will let Rory fight whoever he wants and Rory will fight whoever the UFC wants, BJ will fight whoever the UFC wants. So, I believe its a match the UFC wants but whatever works out, you know?
I think its a great fight, I was excited for that fight, but its the UFC that chooses what happens. I don’t have any power over that.