MacDonald to get Condit rematch
St-pierre main event with Diaz not final yet
TORONTO — Canadian welterweight Rory (Ares) MacDonald is getting another shot at Carlos (Natural Born Killer) Condit.
UFC president Dana White confirmed by text on Wednesday the rematch is slated for Montreal in March. The Bell Centre card is expected to be UFC 158.
But a main event between welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz is “not done yet,” White said.
The UFC boss revealed last Thursday in Seattle the Montreal-based St-Pierre has asked to meet Diaz, calling it unfinished business. The two were slated to meet in October 2011, but the UFC pulled Diaz after he failed to attend news conferences in Toronto and Las Vegas.
Diaz was replaced by Condit, but St-Pierre injured his knee. Condit then beat Diaz in February for the interim title.
A healthy GSP won a five-round decision over the 28-year-old Condit at UFC 154 last month in Montreal.
MacDonald (14-1) asked for the Condit rematch last Saturday after defeating former lightweight and welterweight champ B.J. (The Prodigy) Penn at a card in Seattle.
Condit manager Malki Kawa tweeted the Albuquerque-based fighter “accepted 30 sec after he was called out” by MacDonald.
Condit (28-6) handed MacDonald his only loss when he stopped the young Canadian with seven seconds remaining in their UFC 115 bout at Vancouver’s GM Place in June 2010.
At the post-fight news conference, MacDonald said he was humiliated.
“Because I was just laying there getting beaten on,” he told reporters. “My face looked like I was a guy from ‘The Goonies’ after. ... I was embarrassed about my performance and how I held myself. It did a lot of damage and I don’t think I’ve been the same person since.”
The loss changed MacDonald, who has since won four fights in a row. He moved from Kelowna, B.C., to Montreal to train with coach Firas Zahabi, St-Pierre and other elite fighters at the Tristar Gym.
MacDonald became the UFC’s youngest fighter when he signed on at 20 in the fall of 2009.
His first fight was in January 2010 in Fairfax, Va., where Macdonald submitted Mike Guymon in four minutes 27 seconds.
Then MacDonald was hurled into the maelstrom in his home province at UFC 115 against Condit.
“People were going insane,” he said in a recent interview. “If you watch that fight you could see the intensity that I was bringing ... . And I paid for it.”