\n\tCHICAGO: Omar El-Dafrawy says it was \u201can honor\u201d to represent Arab MMA at PFL Chicago after he needed just 1 minute,12 seconds to knock out James Vake in the first round and move to a 15-6 record, as well as welterweight-title conversation.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe victorious fighter spoke to Arab News about his pride just days after his win on the April 11 card at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, where PFL had positioned the event under Sergio Pettis vs. Mitch McKee.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe finish fit the story El-Dafrawy had been building before the event. He entered Chicago as the 2024 PFL MENA welterweight champion, a fighter who had rebuilt his run with wins over Anthony Zeidan, Jarrah Al-Selawe, and Mohammad Alaqraa to claim that belt.<\/p>\n
\n\tOver Alaqraa, he recorded a second-round technical knockout at 0:57, a result that capped a seven-fight surge at that stage and established him as a key name from the promotion\u2019s Middle East and North Africa expansion.<\/p>\n
\n\tAgainst Vake, that momentum carried over fast. El-Dafrawy sparked Vake with a sharp left hand in the opening round.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cTwenty seconds in the fight I felt that I can put him out straight away; before the fight I had a strong feeling it was going to be early,\u201d El-Dafrawy said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI know on the feet at the highest levels many will struggle with my left hand and I know I\u2019m much more experienced than him so once I found the opening I made the decision and got it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor El-Dafrawy, the result carried weight beyond the record. Before the fight, he had spoken at length about being the lone Arab fighter on the Chicago card.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt means a lot to me I\u2019m very thankful, very happy about the win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a responsibility to be representing that part of the world, it\u2019s an honor to hold up the name of the Arabs. And I will keep doing it until we prove to the world that we have some savages from that part of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat message lands with more force because El-Dafrawy has already become one of the main Arab names produced by PFL MENA through his title run and knockout wins in the region.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s next for me is enjoy the win get back to training next week and see what the rankings will look like in the next couple of weeks and just for a title run and fight for that title soon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO: Omar El-Dafrawy says it was \u201can honor\u201d to represent Arab MMA at PFL Chicago after he needed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-605408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}