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Kevin Lee has made major changes in his camp, and expects to grow by leaps and bounds from training with Georges St-Pierre at the Tristar Gym in Montreal.
For the first time in his career, Kevin Lee is on a two-fight losing skid. After a disappointing performance against former lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos in his welterweight debut in May, the “Motown Phenom” saw it fit to make some drastic changes.
In a recent interview with Submission Radio, Lee revealed how he’s found a new home at the famed Tristar Gym in Montreal, under renowned coach Firas Zahabi.
“I just got done doing this crazy seven-week tour of going around to different camps,” he said. “I went to LA, I went to Phoenix, I went to Denver, I went to Montreal, and I’m back in Vegas now. But you know, (I went) to try and find that guy out there, that somebody who would really speak to me. And to be honest, I feel like I did in Montreal with Tristar and Firas Zahabi. And just having him and being around him and getting to pick his brain and his mind and seeing how it works, I feel like that’s what I’ve been missing.
“I know that’s what I’ve been missing a little bit ever since my coach Robert Follis passed, I haven’t had that guy to really guide me and show me the correct way of what to do, and I’ve just been kind of trying to listen to myself and figure I got it enough. But it’s been a real growing process for me to understand I gotta listen to other people sometimes. And even though this is an individual sport, even though I am the only one stepping in there, it’s such a team effort of being able to rely on somebody else’s experience.
“So, working with Firas, who’s going to be the biggest addition to my camps, going up and training with Tristar with all these guys, is gonna be a big one for me,” he continued. “So, I’m taking it one step at a time and that’s the only thing I’m focused on.”
One of the key training partners he worked with was Georges St-Pierre, who Lee says has been a major influence, so far. Just with the amount of time he spent with the two-division UFC champion, he already expects major improvements in his game.
“Yeah, I mean, me and Georges are cool. We pretty much hung out the whole time. He showed me around Montreal, he showed me all his little spots. We cool,” he said of St-Pierre. “You know, at the end of the day, he understands it. We’re martial artists, we’re competitors. If I’m not trying to push myself to the limit and I’m not trying to fight the best that’s out there, then I feel like he wouldn’t understand me as much. I think he’s got the same kind of fire in him. So, he gets it.
“I’m a competitor, I’m gonna try and fight the best of the best. So, I think that’s like the biggest compliment that I could pay to you, is by trying to fight you. If I’m not trying to fight you and you’re a bum on the streets, then you’ll probably be more upset at me. So, we’re cool. We talked, we hanged.
“He’s going to train with me a lot, so I feel like he’ll be another one of those great minds that I can kind of pick,” he added. “And seeing what makes him tick and what made him such a great champion, those are the things that I think will boost me to the next level.”
The 38-year-old St-Pierre officially retired from competition in late February, but his coach Firas Zahabi isn’t closing his doors on a comeback, especially if “something really amazing comes about.”