made quick work<\/a> of David Onama (14-3 MMA, 6-3 UFC) at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The UFC Fight Night 263 headliner only lasted 3:34, and it was all one-way traffic from “Mean Machine.”<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
During his post-fight interview, Garcia threw a “curveball” when speaking to Daniel Cormier, and called out Holloway for a BMF title fight. Later backstage, Garcia, currently ranked No. 12 in the UFC’s featherweight rankings, mentioned a more likely opponent in Emmett, who sits three spots ahead at No. 9.<\/p>\n
Onama’s teammate, who was also on corner duty Saturday, Youssef Zalal, holds the No. 7 spot. Garcia didn’t call him out, but was asked about the potential matchup. Garcia explained why he decided to call out Emmett instead, who Zalal recently submitted in the first round.<\/p>\n
“I’ll fight Zalal, that’s not the issue; the whole thing is name recognition,” Garcia told reporters during a post-fight news conference. “I know Zalal just beat Emmett, did a fantastic job of that, but I still feel like Emmett may have a little bit more name value than maybe Zalal, you know what I mean? Me and Zalal probably cross paths, there’s no doubt about it.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“I just fought his teammate, so he’s probably already gameplanning to fight me at some point. If it happens, it happens. I’m not scared of anybody. I’ll go out there and fight whoever. I’ll fight three people in a night, I don’t care if that’s what they want me to do, that’s what I’ll do.”<\/p>\n
Garcia is currently on an incredible winning streak of seven with six finishes. The 33-year-old just wants to continue to raise his profile, and believes a matchup against Emmett, who has headlined cards before, makes more sense than someone like Zalal, who is also still in the process of building his own name.<\/p>\n
“In my head, I want my opportunities,” Garcia said. “I literally just fought someone behind me. I feel like I just gave someone a moment, because what does that do for me? I’ll probably get back to No. 11? I’m not sure. I really don’t know how the rankings are gonna play out. At the end of the day, this is how I support my family, this is how I make my money, and Onama was just on the list.”<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“… I think to the fans, I think it’s more exciting to fight an Emmett. Let’s have headliners again. Let’s go Emmett vs. Garcia instead of Emmett vs. Zalal. I think I might be able to sell a little bit more with Emmett than I do with Zalal. Not to take anything away from him. I respect that guy, but at the end of the day, this is about trying to elevate my career.”<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC’s Steve Garcia explains why he passed on Youssef Zalal callout<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2013 Steve Garcia called out Max Holloway and Josh Emmett, and his reasons were intentional. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,153086,786,1180,1395,785,85,3167,787,4908,67102],"class_list":{"0":"post-260131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-david-onama","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-josh-emmett","13":"tag-max-holloway","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-steve-garcia","17":"tag-ufc","18":"tag-ufc-apex","19":"tag-youssef-zalal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}