Zahabi Responds To McGregor

It’s safe to say that Conor McGregor didn’t take too kindly to hearing that Firas Zahabi, the head coach at Tristar Gym, said that Holloway would beat him now, as there is a blue print how to beat the former double champion. A clearly disgruntled McGregor took to Twitter to express his feelings.

This tweet lead to a bit of back and forth between ‘The Notorious’ and ‘Ragin’ Al Iaquinta. Which you can see here.

Now, GSP’s coach Zahabi, has responded to the tweet on the latest episode of Ask Me Anything session (as transcribed by Bloody Elbow), saying that it was nothing personal and that he didn’t even realise the tweet was about him at first.

“There was nothing personal. The reason why I didn’t respond to McGregor [on twitter] is he got personal, and I don’t do that.”

“I kind of glanced over, then I realised it was about me, and realised he’s insulting me. I thought to myself, ‘hey the double champ watches my podcast! That’s amazing! How great is that? I’m gonna give Conor McGregor a shoutout on my podcast.’

“Then somebody pointed out to me, ‘no, it was regards to an article that came out… about me picking Max Holloway over Conor McGregor’ That’s why Conor got upset and went to twitter. So I thought to myself, ‘Oh, he doesn’t listen to my podcast. Too bad.’ 

“But then I realized, ‘hey, he talked about the dorms. That article doesn’t talk about the dorms!’. If he knows about the dorms, he’s listened to this podcast. So I want to give a shoutout to Conor. Thank you for supporting this channel. I really appreciate you listening to this, and I want to let you know it was nothing personal.”

“Conor McGregor recently tweeted at me and said ‘look, why don’t you fight?’ Well, here’s my answer to you. I was fighting at 145 as an amateur. I went to the university and got a degree. Why? Because there was no money in MMA. 

“I had friends like Georges St-Pierre fighting in there, David Loiseau, and they were not making big bucks. Early on, they were making very little. That lifestyle isn’t for everybody. I went to school and got an education.

“Some people out there had such a passion for fighting, they love it so much they didn’t care. I wasn’t one of those guys. I love martial arts to that level, and I will do martial arts every day whether I’m making money with it or not, but some people love fighting so much that they’re willing to give up their education, their business, their work, their whatnot. 

“That’s why I have so much respect for Iaquinta. Because Iaquinta said, ‘I’m not fighting for this amount. I’m gonna go into real restate, I could make more money here.’ That’s what I did. I created businesses.

“I wasn’t planning on being a martial arts trainer. However, life threw me a curveball and I ended up as an MMA trainer. I found out I had a talent for coaching. The fighters, when I was training them for fun, were winning and winning, and it snowballed. Today, we have the Tristar gym.”

“By the way, I don’t punch clocks, okay. Not that I have anything against that, but I’m not. I work for myself. I have several businesses that I own and run. So that’s just a little update for Mr. McGregor, who’s ill-informed.

“I’m far from being poor. I don’t own a Lamborghini, but I don’t have any interest in owning a Lamborghini. I don’t have an interest in fine suits or jewelry. These are not the kinds of things that interests me.”

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