Rory MacDonald hopes to fight BJ Penn at UFC 154 while 'The Prodigy' campaigns for UFC 153

Thanks to some particularly hard training, Canadian wunderkind Rory MacDonald suffered a massive cut along his eyebrow that required 38 stitches and knocked him out of training for no less than one month.

That was enough to cancel his scheduled match-up against B.J. Penn at UFC 152 on Sat., Sept. 22, 2012, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

UFC President Dana White announced as much during a media scrum following the UFC on Fox 4 post-fight press conference and said he was unsure if the bout would simply be moved to another card or if the promotion would find another opponent for Penn.

For their part, both men still want to fight each other and are campaigning for the bout to moved to a later date. MacDonald wants to tussle at UFC 154 on Nov. 17 in Montreal while Penn has something else in mind.

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.

As for Penn, he released a statement on his website and his hope is MacDonald will be ready at UFC 153 on Oct. 13 in Brazil.

"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! ... Rory, 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."

Both UFC 153 and UFC 154 have solid looking fight cards already, though the former is already filled out with 12 bouts announced for the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro.

UFC 154, meanwhile, would benefit greatly from adding a bout like MacDonald vs. Penn, especially considering it could co-main event underneath Georges St. Pierre vs. Carlos Condit in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Ultimately, the decision rests on the powers that be within UFC. Which do you prefer, Maniacs?