Guest co-host Firas Zahabi talks Tatiana Suarez’s climb back, UFC 285 & GSP-Serra rivalry

UFC Unfiltered with Jim Norton and Matt Serra

Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa LLC

Grappling, 868329, Brazilian Jui Jitsu, Combat, Jim Norton, Sambo, Dana White, Stand-up, Bjj, Sports, Fight, Mma, Sports News, Ufc, Zuffa, Striking, Fighting, Judo, Wrestling, News, Combat Sports, Boxing, Matt Serra, Comedy

4.5 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode of UFC Unfiltered, Jim and Matt are joined by a special guest co-host in Tristar Gym owner and head coach Firas Zahabi. With UFC 285 right around the corner, Firas explains why he thinks the main event between Jon Jones and Ciryl Gane for the vacant heavyweight title is as mouthwatering of a matchup as the recent Fight of the Year candidate put on by pound-for-pound kings Islam Makhachev and Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284. With Tatiana Suarez successfully bouncing back in the win column on Saturday for the first time in her 1,358-day layoff, Firas explains why the 32-year-old’s 2nd-round submission win over women’s flyweight Montana De La Rosa proved she can return to the top of women’s MMA and have a Khabib Nurmagomedov-like reign in the women’s strawweight division. Finally, Jim takes Matt and Firas on a stroll down memory lane of the years the two spent on opposite ends of the iconic welterweight rivalry between Matt and Zahabi-trained fighter Georges St-Pierre.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to UFC on Filters. Please tell me that's on video. I've never been happier.
0:13.3	I'll make you fucking bonk it. I'm gonna make you mad.
0:22.6	Welcome to UFC on Filtered. And how you doing for us? Thanks for coming on today.
0:33.3	Great man. I'd love to have the love to be on. Are you looking forward to this Saturday's
0:39.9	card? Like is it hard for you like as a coach to like look forward to it as a fan? Like I'm just
0:45.6	dying for this weekend? Honestly, I'm this is one of the most exciting fights ever put on by UFC.
0:52.9	John Jones versus a Syrian gun. I'm super hyped up on about this fight. The Makachev fight
0:59.3	and the Volkhenazki fight I was thinking about for months on end and this fight I think is even more
1:03.8	exciting. I'm looking forward to this fight even more. And sometimes when fights are so hyped up
1:09.9	like this so important sometimes they're they're let down, you know. But Volkhenazki and Islam were not
1:15.2	definitely not and this one I don't think will be either. Did that play out the way you thought it
1:19.2	would? And I a Volkhenazki I mean everybody knows how tough he is. I was surprised that he was
1:24.7	his take down defense was as good as it was and and he was as hard to keep down as he was. His
1:30.0	confidence was warranted and were you shocked or did it go the way you thought it might go? You know
1:35.3	what I did a pre-fight analysis for that fight and originally I was giving it 70 30 to Islam
1:40.8	but after going through Volkhenazki's footage I went on the air and I was like no no this is going
1:45.6	to be a lot closer after reviewing all this fights seeing how busy he is he hits hard he hits often
1:52.2	he's incredibly incredibly versatile I was like you know what I changed my mind I think I put it
1:56.0	like 60 40 I said it's going to be closer than we think but I still was shocked of how close it
2:01.1	is how close it was I thought Islam was going to have a nice comfortable win and Volk proved
2:07.9	everybody wrong you know it was yeah it was very difficult to call that fight the one thing I
2:12.4	pointed out before the fight and I was picking Islam for sure is that it could be tricky for
	...

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