Vancouver — Between rounds at UFC Vancouver on Saturday, Aiemann Zahabi and Chito Vera came face-to-face in one of those rare, “only in MMA” sorts of moments.
Not unlike Lawler vs. MacDonald, minus the gnarly split lip and bloodbath that was Rory MacDonald’s face. A very cool moment nonetheless, one that Zahabi, winner of a split decision following 15 minutes, touched on after the fight.
“I wanted to touch gloves and be like “good job, I’ll see you in the next round.’ Kind of like I’ve done with all my other opponents,” Zahabi (14-2) said backstage at the Rogers Arena.
“You know for me, I don’t have hate in my heart for any of my opponents. For me it’s just business. I consider myself more like a hitman. I don’t need to hate you to want to kill you. I go out there, and I’m going to do my job. I know what my mission is, it’s to go out there and fight and leave everything behind.”
Zahabi did get the sense that Chito Vera was trying to send him a message, however. “I felt like he wanted to intimidate me with hate, like he’s a tough gangster guy. But you can’t intimidate me man. I fight in a cage for a living. I fight in the octagon for a living. There’s no intimidation here. I’m here to fight you.”
“I got ready for two and a half months to come in here and fight you. There’s no intimidating me,” he added. “So I wanted to let him know that I ain’t no pushover. I’m from Montreal, we’ve seen violence before.”
Georges St-Pierre, a teammate of Zahabi’s at Montreal’s TriStar, certainly knows a thing or two about violence. Now entering his late 30s, Aiemann is making an impressive if somewhat surprising push to title contention. The story around that run is one he’s looking to take control of.
“I don’t like the story that’s been spoken about me, especially, it’s always bout my age. ‘How can I be a prospect at 37?'”
“I’m not saying I’m a prospect. I’m here doing work,” he countered. “For me, it’s my job. Anybody ever does something spectacular in sports, they’re just doing work. It looks spectacular in the moment because of the years of training— they were able to do something that is very low probability, but to them, they were just doing work. They were focused on what they do.”
Watch the full UFC Vancouver post-fight press conference with Aiemann Zahabi above.
