5 Reasons to Watch: UFC Fight Night: MacDonald vs. Saffiedine
The UFC will come to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada this weekend for the first time ever with a welterweight showdown between two of the best fighters at 170 pounds leading the show as No. 2 Rory MacDonald takes on No. 9 Tarec Saffiedine in the five-round main event.
MacDonald has won his last two bouts and hopes to finish off Saffiedine and move one step closer to a title shot. Meanwhile, Saffiedine has been on a tear lately with wins over Nate Marquardt and Hyun Gyu Lim, and he hopes to add MacDonald to his résumé as the highest-ranked fighter he's defeated.
Also on the card, Raphael Assuncao takes on Bryan Caraway in a pivotal matchup in the bantamweight division as both men look to get closer to a shot at the gold. The fourth-ranked Assuncao believed he was next in line until former champion Dominick Cruz returned at UFC 178, and now he has to fight Caraway with an all new motivation to stay in the title picture.
For the 10th-ranked Caraway, this is a chance to legitimize his ranking and prove he can hang with the best of the best in the UFC bantamweight division. Also on deck Saturday night in Canada are the two winners from the recent season of "TUF Nations," as both Chad Laprise and Elias Theodorou make their respective debuts after winning the reality show earlier this year.
UFC on FOX analyst and top-ranked lightweight contender Gilbert Melendez joined us recently to give five good reasons why tuning into UFC Fight Night on FOX Sports 1: MacDonald vs. Saffiedine (Saturday, 10 p.m. ET) is must-see TV for any MMA fan.
Rory MacDonald: Contender or Pretender?
This weekend marks MacDonald's third fight since losing to Robbie Lawler in what was, at the time, his chance to earn a welterweight title shot. He came up short, and since that time he's rattled off two wins in a row but still hasn't gotten back into the championship conversation.
A win over Saffiedine will certainly put him back in the discussion, but a loss would be devastating to him as well. MacDonald has often times been called the future of the welterweight division, but he will only get so many chances to prove he's a real contender or he might get shifted into the category of a "never was."
"If he loses this fight, he's back to the back of the line, and then he's five or six fights away from a title shot," Melendez said about MacDonald. "This is a lot of pressure. It's also a five-round fight. Saffiedine's done the five-rounders a couple of times and MacDonald has slowed down in the third before, so I don't know how he's going to do in the fourth and fifth round. We saw him get a little tired against Robbie.
"On paper, Rory is a little bit more talented, but losing this fight would definitely put him in the back of the line."
MacDonald Might Be the New Captain Canada
Canadians have been some of the most loyal MMA fans for the past decade, especially when it came to supporting their home countrymen in the UFC. At the top of the list was Georges St-Pierre, who was voted top athlete in Canada several times during his UFC career.
Now with St-Pierre retired and out of the sport, his teammate Rory MacDonald has a chance to inherit that loyal fanbase. He fought near his hometown of Vancouver for his last fight, and MacDonald definitely received the biggest ovation for anybody on that card.
If he can pull in the same kind of attraction in Halifax, which is on the complete other side of Canada, maybe MacDonald is ready to take the reins and be the new MMA hero for the country.
"If he can beat Saffiedine, he's one more fight away from title contention. It's a lot of pressure. He's back in Canada and he's going to have to perform against a real tough opponent," Melendez said.
Leg Kicks from Hell
Tarec Saffiedine is a formidable opponent for anyone in the welterweight division, but while some fighters tout a big left hand or a pedigree in wrestling, the Belgian likes to turn his opponent's lead leg into hamburger in a round-after-round massacre.
The leg kick has been a weapon of UFC fighters since the beginning, but when names like Marco Ruas and Pedro Rizzo started developing it as a fight-finishing weapon, everybody took notice. Consider Saffiedine the modern day savant when it comes to brutalizing an opponent with leg kicks.
He destroyed Lim's lead leg, which chopped the giant welterweight down to size. Saffiedine did the same thing a fight earlier when he defeated Nate Marquardt in a one-sided affair to claim the Strikeforce welterweight title before the promotion folded.
"I think MacDonald is heavy on that front leg and he likes to jab forward," Melendez said. "He has kind of that wide boxing stance and if he doesn't start checking those kicks right away it could be a problem. Especially in a five-round fight.
"That's what happened with that Marquardt fight. (Saffiedine) just chopped away and he might end up like Eddie Alvarez and Cowboy Cerrone. It's a crucial weapon. If Rory decides to bite down on the mouthpiece and step forward, it could be a real problem."
And in case you need a reminder of the damage Saffiedine can inflict, here's Marquardt's leg the day after he fought Saffiedine in Strikeforce:
Swelling has gone down from last night believe it or not. Should've checked those kicks! http://t.co/7tuu97E4 http://t.co/HoGyML6A
— Nate Marquardt (@NathanMarquardt) January 13, 2013
Where Is Raphael Assuncao's Mind?
If you looked at this event about two weeks ago, there was no doubt that Assuncao was the next fighter in line for a shot at the UFC bantamweight title with a win over Caraway this weekend. That was until former champion Dominick Cruz returned, dismantled Takeya Mizugaki in just over one minute, and then was declared the man next in line to face champion T.J. Dillashaw.
It means the gravity of the fight with Caraway just shifted because Assuncao now knows there's zero chance he gets the next crack at the belt, and that certainly can weigh on his mind as he takes on a very dangerous top-10 opponent.
"It could really mess with the mentality of a fighter," Melendez said. "The positive is that it happened this last weekend, so Assuncao has already been peaking for his fight and if that happened to me three or four weeks out in my training camp, it would have affected me a little bit more. Lucky for him, it probably happened on his last day of training.
"It could have easily taken away from his training camp, but it happened so late, hopefully it won't hurt him."
TUF Winners Step Up or Step Out
When "The Ultimate Fighter" debuted in 2006, the winners from the show immediately had a mountain of pressure laid at their doorsteps with expectations running high about how they would impact the UFC. Champions like Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans emerged, and lifelong top-10 fighters such as Michael Bisping and Ryan Bader continue to loom on the horizon after being on the reality show.
But the fact of the matter is the number of "Ultimate Fighter" winners that are reaching the top 10 and above these days are much fewer and far between.
This weekend two more winners have a chance to make a statement about life after "The Ultimate Fighter" is over, and strangely enough both of them are undefeated as professionals. Chad Laprise and Elias Theodorou are two of the most promising prospects from "The Ultimate Fighter" in years, but talent and ability only go so far if you can't back it up in the Octagon.
"It's one of the hardest things to be the reality show winner and then come and deliver when it's time for the big leagues," Melendez said. "Court McGee's one of those guys who fought hard and he's been .500 in his UFC career and someone like (Jonathan) Brookins just disappears, so some of these guys have had a hard road after 'The Ultimate Fighter.'
"I think MMA has been part of the Canadian culture for a long time and these guys are fighting in their homeland. It should be a good situation for them. It's a big difference between 'The Ultimate Fighter' show and the big leagues."
