Montreal — Canadian bantamweight Aiemann Zahabi has landed the biggest opponent of his career for UFC 315, as he’ll be taking on former featherweight champ and all-around legend Jose Aldo.
Aldo is one of the rare former champions to welcome fighting younger opponents, taking on up-and-comers in Jonathan Martinez and Mario Bautista since his return from retirement. Zahabi (12-2), though roughly the same age, is much younger in fight years, something the Canadian touched on during Wednesday’s UFC 315 media day.
“Aldo has a lot of experience, and even me, I reached the point now where I realized, it doesn’t really matter who the opponent is. In the end, the opponents are a mirror, they’re exposing you for your faults, and that’s all that you can use them for,” observed Zahabi, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press. “I’m sure he just wants to go out there impress for his last few fights. Me and him are the same age but he has 42 fights, I only have 14.”
“He might be calling it quits soon in that sense, I’m talking about number of fights – he’s a great fighter and everything. I think he just wants to go out there and perform, I don’t think he really cares who he’s fighting.”
Aldo’s last fight was a close split decision loss to Bautista, but to TriStar’s Zahabi, it could have gone the other way. “It is up for debate. It’s a tough one to call. It came down to the second round.” Zahabi noted that Bautista had more control time, but Aldo was inflicting punishment. “Aldo did more of the damage. For me, I like to favour damage, so I would have leaned towards Aldo.”
Zahabi has been on a tear, albeit fighting less frequently than he might have liked. Still, his return comes with the bantamweight on a five-fight win streak, at the UFC’s first Montreal show in the last 10 years. Zahabi wasn’t even in the UFC for that, and actually missed the card, though he did attend teammate Georges St-Pierre’s fights in Montreal prior to that.
Adding to the importance of the fight, Canada has been under fire in a trade war with the U.S., whose president has made it known that he’d like to annex the nation.
“It’s going to be huge for me. I’m a proud Montrealer, I’m proud to represent Quebec and Canada. It’s a great country, some awkward things happening on the world stage, but it’s nice to do my part, and I would love to represent them properly Saturday with a great performance,” Zahabi said on that front.
Watch Aiemann Zahabi’s full UFC 315 media day appearance above.
