Washington — Aiemann Zahabi will represent Team Canada in a bantamweight fight with ex-champ Sean O’Malley at UFC Freedom 250 at the White House this Sunday.
On a seven-fight win streak, the TriStar Gym product always believed he’d get to this point. “The 16-year old me, he knew we’d make it here and dreamed of this,” Zahabi exclaimed while speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press on a media day Wednesday, ahead of the White House card.
With that in mind, Zahabi isn’t about the complain about the media duties he now has
“I feel like it’s part of it all. It’s part of getting my name out there. I won my seven fights kind of quiet in the background, I didn’t get much media attention. I’ve been telling everyone I felt like Clubber Lang, doing my work in the background, winning my fights and nobody knows about me and ‘boom!’ All of a sudden I’m here, I’m at the White House and everyone’s like ‘who is this guy? what is he doing here?'”
With that in mind, Zahabi has just released a documentary series on Youtube outlining exactly who he is and how he got there.
There are some perks to not just fighting at the White House, but against the high-profile O’Malley as well. “I get exposed to his audience and people now who have probably never even seen the UFC or MMA before, being at the White House. It’s nice fighting these big names, because you get a lot more eyeballs. My experience with Jose Aldo was wild.”
Even Zahabi’s mom got excited when he fought The King of Rio. Though the pitfalls were nothing if not absurd. “It was pretty funny, it was very interesting. I got a lot of death threats too during the buildup of that fight. Jose Aldo has a lot of hardcore fans, people didn’t even really want me to make it to the octagon, it was really awkward.”
Zahabi isn’t expecting the same from Sean O’Malley’s fans. He’s also expecting a different type of striker in the former bantamweight champ.
“A different type of striking problem. I feel like Aldo was the boogeyman. He’s the fastest striker I’ve ever faced, speed was incredible and he throws with everything he has. He has an immense amount of power in his strikes. Chito [Vera, another Zahabi foe] has crazy power also, he has the most knockdowns in bantamweight UFC history. Sean, I don’t think his power is based on like one shot kill power, where he walks up to you and hits you on the head like Aldo and Chito. He has more like timing and counter-striking. If you fall into a gap and he hits you and you don’t expect it, he’ll put you down and put you out. He’s fast, but I don’t think he’s as fast as Aldo, he doesn’t have the blinding speed.”
Zahabi feels footwork is where O’Malley excels at, but feels he has the better striking of the two. “Because my striking’s not traditional, it doesn’t mean it’s not as good. I feel like mine is very unconventional and awkward, and it presents unique problems which are much harder to immediate in the training room.”
“I think I’m a better grappler and better wrestler than him too, I’ve been a black belt since 2017, and I’ve wrestled for a long time,” the Canadian added. “If there’s an opportunity there I’ll take him down, if not I’ll keep it striking the whole time.”
Zahabi is the brother of TriStar coach Firas Zahabi, and rest assured, that familial bond doesn’t mean he has it any easier in the gym. “My brother was tough on everybody for sure. My brother’s a hard guy, a very tough dude, and he has a high standard for the whole team.”
“When I’m sparring, every time I get hit he’s like ‘you got hit with a cross! You got hit with a hook, you got hit with a hook!’ In practice, getting hit even one time is a thing. So I feel it in the practice, but it’s only so that I can be perfect on fight night, so that there’s less chance for error.”
Plus, without setting a high bar in the training room, “I wouldn’t be able to fight at the White House,” Zahabi noted.
Watch the full UFC Freedom 250 media day appearance by Aiemann Zahabi above.
