{"id":114487,"date":"2014-10-06T16:50:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T23:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backend.bjpenn.com\/?p=114487"},"modified":"2022-02-04T20:21:26","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T04:21:26","slug":"firas-zahabi-people-want-to-see-rory-macdonald-fight-for-the-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/firas-zahabi-people-want-to-see-rory-macdonald-fight-for-the-belt\/","title":{"rendered":"Firas Zahabi: People Want To See Rory MacDonald Fight For The Belt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/backend.bjpenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Rory-MacDonald-Wins-PNG.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/backend.bjpenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Rory-MacDonald-Wins-PNG.png\" alt=\"Rory MacDonald Wins PNG\" width=\"390\" height=\"270\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-87352\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Rory-MacDonald-Wins-PNG.png 390w, https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Rory-MacDonald-Wins-PNG-300x207.png 300w, https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Rory-MacDonald-Wins-PNG-361x250.png 361w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 390px) 100vw, 390px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Firas Zahabi believes that people want to see his prize pupil Rory MacDonald fight for the belt.<\/p>\n<p>MacDonald is fresh off a devastating 3rd round TKO win over Tarec Saffiedine at UFC Fight Night Halifax.  The bout marked the first time Saffiedine had been stopped in his career.<\/p>\n<p>Following the win, MacDonald, along with many of his fans began calling for a title fight against the winner of Johny Hendricks vs. Robbie Lawler II in December.<\/p>\n<p>Firas Zahabi joined Ariel Helwani on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/2014\/10\/6\/6922567\/firas-zahabi-the-fans-all-want-to-see-rory-macdonald-get-the-next\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The MMA Hour<\/a> to discuss Rory&#8217;s future.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;When he beat (Tyron) Woodley, they said he&#8217;d get the title shot after that. But it wasn&#8217;t enough.  They gave it to Matt Brown and (Robbie) Lawler as a (title) elimination bout. It&#8217;s because they have more exciting performances and that&#8217;s what the market is. People want to pay for what they want to see, and I understand that. It&#8217;s fair. I think now people want to see Rory.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He finished with an incredible left hook that I think would&#8217;ve knocked out an elephant if it&#8217;d hit an elephant. I think people believe now that it would be an exciting match against whoever&#8217;s champion in the spring.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How many more fights are on the table? If you look at the top-10, who else would be eligible? Everybody&#8217;s pretty much booked or [MacDonald] has beat. I don&#8217;t see who&#8217;s really out there who makes sense. I think the only thing that makes sense now is the winner of Hendricks and Lawler. I can&#8217;t think of anybody else.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Firas Zahabi believes that people want to see his prize pupil Rory MacDonald fight for the belt. MacDonald is fresh off a devastating 3rd round TKO win over Tarec Saffiedine at UFC Fight Night Halifax. The bout marked the first time Saffiedine had been stopped in his career. Following the win, MacDonald, along with many [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2616,"featured_media":87352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[2681],"tags":[9,381,480,11,777,793,15],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Firas Zahabi: People Want To See Rory MacDonald Fight For The Belt | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/firas-zahabi-people-want-to-see-rory-macdonald-fight-for-the-belt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Firas Zahabi: People Want To See Rory MacDonald Fight For The Belt | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Firas Zahabi believes that people want to see his prize pupil Rory MacDonald fight for the belt. MacDonald is fresh off a devastating 3rd round TKO win over Tarec Saffiedine at UFC Fight Night Halifax. The bout marked the first time Saffiedine had been stopped in his career. 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