Rory MacDonald suffered a cut in training that required him to get 38 stitches and mentioned he would like to return at UFC 154 against Penn.
Penn went to his Twitter page to give his thoughts on the injury to MacDonald and said he would like to have their fight happen at UFC 153 instead of UFC 154.
“Am sorry to hear about the injury to @rory_MacDonald, this is a fight that got me out of retirement and one that I was looking forward to,” Penn wrote on Twitter. “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!”
Later, Penn sent out another tweet at MacDonald that fighting at UFC 153 is more reasonable then one month later at UFC 154.
“With all due respect you challenged me to come out of retirement and I accepted,” Penn wrote. “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 is not allowed to have any contact for the next month. If the cut heals in 30 days, he could resume training on September 4th, which is only five weeks from UFC 153. Penn may not like waiting until November, but MacDonald may not want to have that short of a training camp for Penn.