Tarec Saffiedine’s stock is at an all-time high coming off a welterweight title win in the last ever Strikeforce bout, beating Nate Marquardt in a lopsided fight. Saffiedine was, of course, one of the many fighters to make the move from Strikeforce over to the UFC and it didn’t take long before a major opportunity presented itself, but it was one Tarec turned down.
When Rory MacDonald pulled out of his UFC 158 bout with Carlos Condit due to injury it was Saffiedine that got the UFC call to see if he’d be willing to step in against the former interim champion. Saffiedine would turn that bout down and was on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Hour yesterday to explain the situation (transcription via MMA Mania):
The main reason is, I’m not 100-percent healthy. I have a couple of injuries that have been nagging and I had to take care of. And so, I had to unfortunately turn down the fight. It was too short to heal my injury and be ready for the fight. With healthy and a longer camp, I would love to take the fight. But, unfortunately, that’s the reason why I had to turn it down.
…
On short notice, if I weren’t injured, I don’t know, in such short notice, I think I would have to say no. I don’t know man. It was a tough call because I wasn’t in the best shape right now and it was a tough call to not say yes and at the same time it was a great opportunity and one I was looking for also. But, the balance in the end was the injury.
In the end, the UFC ended up adjusting the card by sliding Johny Hendricks into the Condit bout and Marquardt stepped in to fight Jake Ellenberger (Hendricks’ original opponent).