Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
Tristar leader Firas Zahabi takes Conor McGregor to task for his most recent indiscretion.
Conor McGregor apparently punched an older man in a bar who refused a shot of his Proper 12 whiskey in April. A video of the scene just surfaced last week, which led to many in the MMA community commenting on the incident, which is still being investigated by Irish police. Somewhat surprisingly, one of his fiercest critics has been MMA trainer Firas Zahabi.
On a recent podcast, Zahabi went after McGregor for the melee (transcription via MMA Junkie):
“I don’t care what anybody says. It is indefensible. There is no defense to this, except this guy is a pathetic, sorry excuse for a human being.
“What a disgusting display. I don’t care how much money you have, I don’t care how famous you are in the world. If this is the type of person you are, your value is zero. Your value is zero.”
He carried on:
“This is an embarrassment to MMA,” Zahabi said. “This is an embarrassment to us all. When the media or people from other sports say, ‘Oh, MMA people are animals. They’re savage, they’re violent, they’re the barbarians of sports.’ It’s going to be harder for us to defend.”
“I’m sure 99 percent of all Irish people who saw that are disgusted,” Zahabi said. “99 percent sure his coaching staff are disgusted. Everybody’s disgusted at this thing. He probably thought nobody was filming. We know that when nobody’s looking, McGregor will do the most disgusting acts. Those are his true colors.
“It’s just purely disgusting. I could not be more disappointed.”
McGregor has since done a long interview with ESPN where he admits fault for the incident and is willing to take any punishment thrown his way for it. That seems unlikely to sway Zahabi’s opinion though.