Tarec Saffiedine had a five-fight winning streak snapped when he lost to Rory MacDonald at UFC Fight Night 54. Something needed to change for the 29-year-old.
Saffiedine (16-4 MMA, 2-1 UFC) moved from his long-time home at Team Quest to TriStar, the gym behind former UFC superstar Georges St-Pierre, ahead of Saturday’s UFC on FOX 18 bout with Jake Ellenberger (30-11 MMA, 9-7 UFC). The FOX Sports 1-televised bout closed out the event’s preliminary card at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.
The move proved successful when Saffiedine worked his way to a unanimous-decision win over the tough veteran. Now, he wants to find his way back to the cage at UFC Fight Night 87 on May 8.
“There’s a huge card in Europe in Rotterdam, so I would love to be on that card,” Saffiedine told MMAjunkie following his victory. “Other than that, I’ll go back to training pretty soon. Tonight, I got the (win), but I made a lot of mistakes. So I’ve got to go back to the gym and work on those mistakes.”
The TriStar move was not motivated by personal issues between Saffiedine and anyone at Team Quest, he said. It was simply a needed next step in his career.
Now, he has the opportunity to move into the rankings as he develops under the guidance of TriStar’s head trainer, Firas Zahabi.
“I was at Team Quest for a long time – eight years,” Saffiedine said. “For the past year, year and a half, I felt like I needed a change. It was a personal decision, and (there’s) no bad blood between me and the team. I felt I needed a change in the way I trained. Why TriStar? I needed to go there and try it out. Firas Zahabi has trained so many great contenders, champions, so I went there for a week or two to try it out. And the first couple days, I said that’s where I needed to be for my career. They welcomed me with open arms.”
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