Issue 090

July 2012

How Firas Zahabi, head trainer at the Georges St Pierre-forming Tristar Gym, went from trainee lawyer to world-class coach.

Accolades for a trainer don’t come much higher than helping lead a man to the top of the pound-for-pound rankings. And while Firas Zahabi, head coach at Montreal’s Tristar Gym, is yet to take the ‘Coach of the Year’ title at Fighters Only’s annual World MMA Awards, the ascendancy of his most outstanding pupils, UFC welterweight champion Georges St Pierre and rising 170lb prospect Rory McDonald, suggests he might deserve it.

Though some may not realize, the 32-year-old’s exotic name belies his Montreal birthplace. Firas has lived in Canada his entire life but was born to parents who a few years prior emigrated from Lebanon – specifically the capital, Beirut – around the 1975 start of the country’s multi-decade-spanning civil war. And for years he followed the career path they’d indicated: becoming a lawyer. And though both they and he were unaware at the time, his sudden fascination with martial arts at 19 would reroute the next 13 years of his life in an entirely different direction – all because of Royce Gracie.

As for so many when they saw the early UFCs, the slight man in the white gi who won three of the first four UFC tournaments “astonished” Firas. “I looked far and wide for jiu-jitsu in Canada but there just wasn’t any.” Eventually Zahabi came across the small private Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes of Angelo Exarhakos. “He was a purple belt from Renzo Gracie… We were actually drinking from the source. We were able to get Gracie jiu-jitsu first-hand from Angelo… There was nobody his rank in Canada. So a purple belt for us, it was everything.”

Eventually demand upon these exclusive classes outstripped supply, and Firas and the group moved to Tristar Gym on the west side of Montreal. “It was then that Georges came aboard.” Hold on. Firas Zahabi today the head trainer of UFC welterweight champion Georges St Pierre, used to be a pupil alongside that very person? “Yeah, me and Georges were both students of Angelo Exarhakos.” And it wasn’t only Georges. Two of Firas’ other premier charges in the present day, Ivan Menjivar and David Loiseau, rolled alongside Zahabi. How did he go from co-pupil to coach? By accident, says Firas.

“At the time I was Canadian champion of what they called sport jiu-jitsu, but it was really MMA with open-hand [strikes]… I was the lightweight champion, absolute champion, Canadian jiu-jitsu champion. I had many titles and was considered the more technical of all the [Tristar] fighters. I was considered to know the correct [way] best, so I was asked to teach after Angelo said he couldn’t come anymore.” 

That, due to the instructor’s flourishing side business in the comic book industry. What was initially meant to be temporary became permanent, and soon Firas Zahabi, at 27 years old, was lead trainer at Tristar. One year later he was the owner. He has since melded it into the championship-caliber camp it is today. Impressive for a man who only finished his college studies at 26, having earned a bachelors in philosophy.

Though Zahabi’s base is jiu-jitsu he’s learned in both Muay Thai, having spent summers training alongside 11-time Thai boxing champion and legend Sagat Petchyindee in Thailand (the inspiration for the character Sagat in the Street Fighter video game series). Wrestling, too, thanks to the Canadian wrestling team training literally down the road from the Tristar complex. But Firas credits the greatest advancements in his, and Georges’, jiu-jitsu to John Danaher, the quirky black belt from Renzo Gracie Academy whose torso is never dressed in anything other than a rash guard. 

“I remember the day Georges came back from the Renzo Gracie Academy, he told me, ‘I met this man, there’s a black belt instructor there, he tapped me out five times in five minutes.’ And I laughed. I was like, ‘Georges, that can’t be right. You must have let him have his way, you were showing respect.’ … I just couldn’t conceive of somebody tapping Georges out, and catching Georges repeatedly… Sure enough, I went down to meet this John Danaher and sure enough he beat me to a pulp as well exactly like Georges said.” 

Lengthy training with Danaher ensued. In fact, Danaher is tied into what Zahabi classifies as his career highlight thus far: Georges’ victory over BJ Penn. “It pushed us together, created an atmosphere of brotherhood and that training camp was the best in terms of how we pulled together as a team. I think that was my greatest success.” And it was Danaher who outlined the strategy for passing Penn’s then-unpassable guard. Danaher also correctly asserted doing so would “drain him completely of his energy.”

And of the Zahabi clan, success in martial arts hasn’t just found Firas. From his three brothers, his eldest sibling, Ahmad, is a brown belt in BJJ and 2004 middleweight NAGA world champion. His youngest, Aiemann, is an undefeated amateur MMA prospect. “Martial arts is part of the family,” understates Firas. 

Though Tristar is now his to lead, Firas isn’t one to turn away from those who made him. His original jiu-jitsu coach, and the man from whom he first took the Tristar reigns, Angelo Exarhakos, did eventually return to the gym only for a genetic issue to cause a number of herniated discs in his back – leaving him unable to train. “Later on I awarded him his brown belt,” reveals Zahabi. “And very soon he’ll be getting his black belt from me.” The student, it seems, became a master.