Earlier this week Conor McGregor lashed out at Firas Zahabi on social media over an episode of the Tristar gym owner and head coach’s podcast in which he explained why he though Max Holloway would beat the Irish superstar if they ever had a rematch.
“Hey firaz. Young man afraid to get in and fight, himself,” McGregor wrote in response to Zahabi on Instagram. “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.”
Now Zahabi has addressed the callout on the latest episode of his podcast.
“There was nothing personal,” Zahabi said. “The reason why I didn’t respond to McGregor (on twitter) is he got personal, and I don’t do that.”
Zahabi also explained his immediate reaction when he first learned that McGregor had wrote about him.
“I kind of glanced over, then I realized it was about me, and realized 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!’” he continued. “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.”
Zahabi then got into more detail reacting to a specific point McGregor made about the fact that he doesn’t fight even though he’s only 38-years-of-age.
“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,” he said. “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.”
He then addressed McGregor’s claim that he “hit a clock for a living.”
“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.”
