Photo by Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Tristar head coach and GSP trainer Firas Zahabi didn’t mince words when asked about Conor McGregor assaulting an old man in a bar.
Georges St-Pierre’s coach is not a fan of Conor McGregor.
You could argue that Firas Zahabi, renown head trainer at Tristar MMA in Montreal, has never been a fan of McGregor, but following the Irish superstar’s latest scandal where he’s caught on camera suckerpunching a 50+ year old man at a pub there can be no doubt.
Zahabi ripped “The Notorious” during the latest episode of his Ask Me Anything series of YouTube podcasts (via MMA Junkie).
“I don’t care what anybody says, it is indefensible,” he said. “There is no defense to this except that 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.”
The pub punch incident went down earlier this year in April and as usual the Dublin rumor mill had the truth of it before the press was able to confirm the incident happened via security camera footage. The man McGregor punched refused to press charges, but Irish police are investigating the assault now that they’ve seen the video. McGregor apologized for the incident in a long interview with ESPN, but that doesn’t clear things up as far as Zahabi is concerned.
“This is an embarrassment to MMA, an embarrassment to us all,” the coach said. “When the media or people from other sports say 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% of all Irish people who saw that are disgusted,” he continued “99$ 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.”
Zahabi has previously called for a fight between his prize pupil Georges St-Pierre and Conor McGregor, saying it would be ‘the biggest fight of all time.’ McGregor hasn’t spent much time calling out GSP, but he has lashed out at Georges’ coach over his tendency to predict McGregor will lose against whatever opponent is currently being discussed.
Hey firaz. Young man afraid to get in and fight, himself. Stop talking about me like you know me, you twerp.
You are what age? Why are not in there yourself? Are you not up to it?
You rent dorms and hit a clock for a living.
Shut your pie, kid.— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) January 9, 2019
While St-Pierre is retired, Zahabi has theorized the former middleweight and welterweight champ would return should a big fight come together. Any interest in Mac vs. Georges, Maniacs?