Firas Zahabi responds to Conor McGregor: It was nothing personal

Earlier this week, Tristar head coach Firas Zahabi shared his belief that, if Conor McGregor were to rematch Max Holloway in 2019, the latter would come out on top.

“If I had to pick Max Holloway vs. McGregor today, I would pick Max Holloway,” Zahabi said on his podcast. “I think Holloway has grown leaps and bounds since then. In my opinion, Holloway would out-punch him, outwork him. He would do very much what Diaz did [to Conor McGregor], but more,” he said. “I think McGregor got away with a lot of stuff, like the leg kicks against Diaz, but I don’t think he’ll have that against Holloway.”

This opinion did not go over well with McGregor, who quickly responded on social media.

Hey firaz. Young man afraid to get in and fight, himself. Stop talking about me like you know me, you twerp.
You are what age? Why are not in there yourself? Are you not up to it?
You rent dorms and hit a clock for a living.
Shut your pie, kid.

— Conor McGregor (@TheNotoriousMMA) January 9, 2019

“Hey firaz. Young man afraid to get in and fight, himself. Stop talking about me like you know me, you twerp. You are what age? Why are not in there yourself? Are you not up to it? You rent dorms and hit a clock for a living. Shut your pie, kid.” – Conor McGregor on Twitter.

Zahabi has now responded to this barb from McGregor, assuring that his analysis was not personal.

“There was nothing personal,” Zahabi said on a more recent instalment of his podcast (transcript via Bloody Elbow). “The reason why I didn’t respond to McGregor (on twitter) is he got personal, and I don’t do that.”

Zahabi continued, explaining that his original comments about Conor McGregor were so innocent that he didn’t initially believe McGregor was talking about him in the Tweet above.

“I kind of glanced over, then I realized it was about me, and realized he’s insulting me,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘hey the double champ watches my podcast! That’s amazing! How great is that? I’m gonna give Conor McGregor a shoutout on my podcast.’

“Then somebody pointed out to me, ‘no, it was regards to an article that came out… about me picking Max Holloway over Conor McGregor’ That’s why Conor got upset and went to twitter. So I thought to myself, ‘Oh, he doesn’t listen to my podcast. Too bad.’

“But then I realized, ‘hey, he talked about the dorms. That article doesn’t talk about the dorms!’” he continued. “If he knows about the dorms, he’s listened to this podcast. So I want to give a shoutout to Conor. Thank you for supporting this channel. I really appreciate you listening to this, and I want to let you know it was nothing personal.”

What’s your take on the recent tension between Firas Zahabi and Conor McGregor?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 1/11/2019.