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Firas Zahabi: St. Pierre’s Training Camp Unsustainable

By   /  2013-03-27  /  No Comments

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Firas Zahabi, long time trainer of welterweight champ George St. Pierre, talked with Sherdog.com about GSP’s future in the sport. He shares some interesting thoughts on how GSP’s demanding training camps are taking an effect on his body.

On whether St. Pierre is less likely than other champs to be fighting when he’s 35: “I think so because his training camps are not sustainable forever. His training camps are very difficult. I’ve done a lot of training camps. I could tell you the energy, time and money and hours spent doing a GSP training camp is ridiculous. It’s borderline insane. There’s a lot of effort going into preparing him for his fights. Can he live this lifestyle for another four or five years? I don’t know. Because it’s not a balanced lifestyle. It’s not a balanced lifestyle for him.

“He’s giving up a lot of free time and leisure time and experiences he could be having in life to maintain his title, to maintain this excellence. It’s a difficult thing to do. He’s going to have to make that choice one fight at a time. Does he want to go through another training camp? Right now at this time, yes, for sure. There’s no doubt in my mind he wants to do another one, but down the line, two or three more training camps, is he still going to want to do it? That’s up to him. Does he still have the fire and the passion? We’ll see.”

On the idea of St. Pierre cleaning out the welterweight division: “They always say that. They’ve been saying that since the B.J. Penn fight at UFC 94. ‘There’s nobody else, there’s nobody else.’ There’s always a guy that pops up. Jake Ellenberger looked great, and then there’s going to be another guy. There’s Demian Maia. Demian Maia’s on a win streak. There’s always an up-and-comer. You can’t forget that every time there’s a show, the deck gets shuffled. That’s why I don’t really believe there’s nobody else. Look at Robbie Lawler, for instance. He had a tremendous win. Very impressive win. That guy can hit you with one punch and it’s over. Same thing with Jake Ellenberger, same thing with [Johny] Hendricks.

“There are so many studs out there. Tomorrow, when you run out of them, the next day you’ll find a new guy with a great performance, like Erick Silva, for instance. I’m sure he’s going to go on a winning streak. He just lost to Jon Fitch. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins three, four fights in a row. I wouldn’t be surprised at all. It wouldn’t shock me the least bit, and he could become a No. 1 contender. There’s always going to be another guy. There’s too many good guys out there. I think it’s a myth that the division can be cleaned out.”

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