UFC grants Rory MacDonald his wish -- a rematch with Carlos Condit

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Canadian welterweight Rory (Ares) MacDonald is getting another shot at Carlos (Natural Born Killer) Condit.

UFC president Dana White confirmed by text to The Canadian Press on Wednesday that the rematch is slated for Montreal in March. The Bell Centre card is expected to be UFC 158.

MacDonald (14-1) asked for the Condit rematch last Saturday in the cage after defeating former lightweight and welterweight champion B.J. (The Prodigy) Penn at a televised card in Seattle.

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 in Seattle, the 23-year-old MacDonald said he was humiliated by the loss to Condit.

"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, 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. So I want to get that back."

The loss changed MacDonald, who has won four fights in a row since.

He moved from Kelowna, B.C., to Montreal in the aftermath to train with coach Firas Zahabi, welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and other elite fighters at the Tristar Gym.

He also focused on fighting without emotion, reasoning that it contributed to the loss in Vancouver.

MacDonald became the UFC's youngest fighter when he signed on at 20 in the fall of 2009.

His first fight was a small televised event in January 2010 in Fairfax, Va., where Macdonald submitted Mike Guymon in four minutes 27 seconds.

Then he was hurled into the maelstrom in his home province at UFC 115 against Condit, the former WEC champion.

"People were going insane," MacDonald recalled in a recent interview. "I never heard that level of noise in a building ... I was super-shocked and it just got me fired up to a point where it was, like, bad. If you watch that fight you could see the intensity that I was bringing and I don't think that was my style. And I paid for it."

MacDonald started strong but faded. And Condit took advantage.

The 28-year-old Condit is coming off a five-round loss to St-Pierre at UFC 154.