Issue 216

April 2025

E. Spencer Kyte catches up with Aiemann Zahabi to track his long road from overlooked underdog to homegrown headliner at UFC 315.

The last time the UFC brought an event to Bell Centre in Montreal, Aiemann Zahabi was a month removed from picking up his fourth professional victory and nearly two full years shy of making his first trek into the famed Octagon. Later this month, when he returns there for UFC 315, Zahabi will be the final Canadian athlete to make the walk, where he will face off with one of the sport’s most respected icons, Jose Aldo.

“I’m hoping they go crazy for me,” he says about the pairing. "Aldo is such a big star that it’s a funny situation. A lot of people that I know from the gym, that I know a little bit, they all tell me the same thing: ‘We love Aldo; don’t hurt him too much.’ And I’m like, ‘It’s just business.’ He’s coming to rip my head off, and I’m going in there to rip his head off, and after the fight, I’ll be nice.”

There aren’t that many UFC athletes who get an opportunity like this. To compete at home, as the final non-title fight on a massive pay-per-view card, against someone who has already been enshrined in the UFC Hall of Fame. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment that feels like it’s coming at the right time for the 37-year-old Zahabi. He enters on a five-fight win streak and is stationed at No. 14 in the bantamweight rankings, three spots behind Aldo. This is one of those moments when kids pantomime in their bedroom, dreaming of sporting greatness in the future, and the chance every competitor yearns for once they reach the biggest stage in the sport. 

EMBRACING THE CHALLENGE

“It’s a really good opportunity for me, a huge opportunity, but there is still a lot of adversity,” he begins, smiling as he sits. “A lot of people talking trash about Aldo in the sense that he’s old and all like that, but he’s still fast, he still hits so hard. He rocked Jonathan Martinez in Round 3, could have finished him, arguably won against (Mario) Bautista. He’s still got what it takes. He came back for a reason, and I’m hoping to take his crown. I’m (looking at this in terms of) a quote that I heard on Instagram recently: ’When God wanted to make David a king, he didn’t send him a crown; he sent him Goliath.’I feel like this is my time to step up, and the UFC is giving me Aldo to do it. That’s the mindset.”

He smirked when he finished speaking, knowing he’d provided a sound answer, but not the one I was searching for or expected. We’ve known each other for more than a dozen years and have spoken countless times, both for stories and just as friends. He can see that I don’t fully believe there is more to it for him than a great opportunity against a legendary foe.I press once more, suggesting that there is no way that his bout at Bell Centre, on May 10 holds the same meaning as when he made the walk at Rogers Place in Edmonton back in November, where he bested Pedro Munhoz to continue his run of positive results. Again, Zahabi smirks.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he says. “It doesn’t fight for me. It’s nice to have. It's kind of the same thing as when I was fighting in Madison Square Garden. You’re going to fight in one of the most historic venues of all time, but in the end, I’m just fighting the guy.”

A LONGER JOURNEY THAN MOST

Zahabi made his professional debut in 2012 but struggled to find fights. He’d already cornered UFC fighters, and his famous last name certainly didn’t do him any favors as he tried to build his resume. The dirty little secret about regional MMA is that no one wants to bring someone in from far away who may get the best of local talent. His final bout outside the UFC came in Saskatchewan and ended early in the first when his opponent suffered a knee injury. When he was signed to make his debut in Halifax the following year, many cried “favoritism,” suggesting the only reason the 6-0 bantamweight was getting an opportunity was because of his older brother, Firas Zahabi, leader of Montreal’s Tristar Gym and the longtime coach of UFC luminary Georges St-Pierre. Nine months after edging out Reginaldo Vieira to win his debut, Zahabi was knocked out cold by Ricardo Ramos then dropped a decision to Vince Morales. Some treated the consecutive losses as confirmation that he didn’t belong, prompting Zahabi to ponder those ideas.

“When I had the two losses back-to-back, I was completely thrown out,” he says. “Nobody cared. The worst thing that can happen to your career is apathy. Nobody is talking about you. That was kind of rough, and now to see I’m the one that withstood a lot of the tests, it means everything, man. (Alexander) Volkanovski was saying it the other day after he won his fight. Coming back from that adversity makes you twice the fight that you thought you were. It really does give you that mettle, that grit, because when you’re undefeated, you have this belief in yourself. To have it taken away — especially losing by KO for the first time ever — you lose yourself. You lose that confidence that you’re indestructible.”

THE ROUTE BACK

After introspection, he pauses and then smiles as he picks back up.

“It’s hard to feel indestructible once you’ve been destroyed!” he says, leaning backward in his chair, laughing deep and loud. “So, building that back, I feel like it made me a much better fighter, much better mindset.”

Getting back into the win column isn’t the same as making a concerted push toward the rankings, eventually breaking into the Top 15, and being one of just 25 ranked UFC competitors currently riding a five-fight winning streak or greater heading into his clash with Aldo. The first couple of wins reaffirmed that Zahabi could compete at this level. Still, it wasn’t until early last year, when he stepped in against Javid Basharat in Las Vegas, that the Montreal native finally realized he could reach the heights he’s now attained.

“He was getting so much — he was getting 10 times the media attention I was getting, and everyone was telling him, ‘You win this fight, you’re in the Top 15,’” begins Zahabi, shaking his head as he recalls the hype surrounding the then-unbeaten Dana White’s Contender Series alum. “Nobody was telling me that! I just assumed we were working our way up, and we’re close, but they were telling him. When I beat him, it’s like, ‘This guy was 15-0, never lost; I can beat anybody.’ I was also thinking like, ‘Man, I already won three in a row. Could I really win a fourth one in a row?’ I told that to my brother, and he was like, ‘What are you talking about? Each fight is on its own. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done the last couple of years. You’re fighting Javid. You’re not fighting Javid, plus these guys.’ Every time you fight, it’s just that one fight. I’ve just got to train, focus, and adapt myself for each fight, so I always have a little something new to show. Stay ahead of the game.”

ENJOYINGTHE MOMENT

There is a reason sports are littered with cliches about hard work beating skill, and how much competition comes down to what’s between an athlete’s ears. At the highest levels of any sport, everyone is skilled, everyone is talented, and the best of the best are all the complete package. What differentiates them is their ability to perform every night, no matter the circumstances. 

“So, I’ll tell it to you like this so the fans can understand,” begins Zahabi, who started working with Mike Moor — ‘Mindset Mike’ — ahead of his bout with Munhoz last November. “When you get to the Top 15 or the Top 10, it’s a given that you’re doing all the conditioning. That you have the skills. That you can knock guys out, submit guys. But what’s not a given is the repeatability of the performance. That’s not given. For me, working with ‘Mindset Mike,’ his whole thing is to give me a system to make sure that I give my best on Fight Night. And it’s not a guess whether I’m giving my best. We know that by the time it’s Fight Night, I’m going to be giving my best. That’s his whole job and what his system is about. Right now, I feel really good. I’m training super-hard, but I still tell Mike, ‘Everything is going well, but we need it on Fight Night.’ That’s the thing that goes through every fighter’s head because that’s the only night that matters.”

For his part, Zahabi is doing everything to ensure it all comes together and is executed correctly on May 10.

“For this fight, I’m all in,” he says, smiling. “I’ve done everything I can. My favorite quote that Firas said to me once is ‘No one can ever take away my hard work.’ It’s the only thing I have. It’s the only thing I own. Whatever people think of me after, it is what it is, but I know what I put forward.”

HE AIN’T HEAVY

Of late, much of that hard work has come under the watchful eye of his brother, who has always been in his corner.

“Firas likes to give priority to the highest ranked guys, so there was Georges, there was Rory, all these guys that we ahead of me,” Zahabi explains, laying out the tier system that has long existed inside the world-renown gym on Ferrier Street in Montreal. “We’re a team, and I am a team player, so I totally understand that Firas only has 24 hours in a day, just like everybody else. So, the other guys were ahead of me in terms of the rankings, further along in their careers. And he gave them the attention they needed because they deserved it, and they earned it, and they were dedicated too.

Now that I am — I don’t mean this in an ego way, but now that I’m the top dog at Tristar, I get the most,” he continues, quickly adding context to his previous statement to minimize any perceived over-confidence. “At one point, I was the only UFC guy at Tristar, so I got a lot of the attention. It’s a good system and a very fair system,” he adds. “(Firas) never said, ‘Oh, he’s my brother; f*** all you guys! I’m gonna take care of my little brother.’ He was fair in that sense, and I totally understood. I did what I could, and now that I’ve moved up, we work together more.”

As he says that last piece, his eyes light up in a manner that only a younger sibling can fully identify with, primarily when your older sibling has achieved some level of acclaim. It’s why, even when his brother is pushing him through torturous workouts, the youngest of the three Zahabi brothers — Ahmad (Alex) Zahabi runs Tristar Burlington BJJ and is also a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt — is grateful for the time they’re spending together.

“I told him last week — it was hell, he was killing me, and I was smiling through the pain,” begins Zahabi, unable to keep his smile from growing wider. “He was like ‘Why you smiling, man?’ and I said, ‘You know what, brother? We spend a lot of time together!’ He said, ‘Yeah, I spend more time with you than I do, my wife,’ and d’you know what? Alhamdulillah! It’s a blessing for us to spend this much time together. One day, I’m gonna retire, and we’re gonna be working together, but not for me; for the other guys. But right now, we’re both so focused on me, and it’s a blessing. It’s a blessing for me to have him, for us to be brothers, and to be enjoying it at the same time.”

CHASING DOWN THE DREAM

It’s strange to think of Zahabi as a prospect, given that he’s 37 and competes in one of the most talent-rich divisions in the UFC. But if you had to affix a label to him, that’s what he is, as this is his first push forward into the rankings and initial opportunity to crack the Top 10. His last fight with Munhoz was the “veteran measuring stick test” every ascending talent has to pass to continue climbing the divisional ladder, and Aldo is that next step up.

“Sometimes when fans bring up my age, try to insult me with my age, what they don’t understand is that I did everything I can to hold on to my dream, and I get to live it. Every day, I live it. You’re hating on me being at this place, at this age, because maybe you let go of your dream at 27, 28, at 30, but I didn’t, man. I scraped, and I worked, and I fought my way back so I could have these moments. I feel like it’s a good story more than it’s an embarrassing story.”

Being here in this moment is something he takes immense pride in because there were moments after getting knocked out by Ramos, following his decision loss to Morales when he pondered turning his focus to coaching.

“When you go through the rough patch, there are a lot of demons that creep into your mind and tell you, ‘Maybe you should quit.’ My friend Steve Simms told me one time when I was having doubts, he looked at me and said, ‘There’s a million ways to make money; you ain’t always gonna be able to live your dream,’” recalls Zahabi, chuckling at the recollection and the truthfulness of his friend’s statement. “He said, ‘If you really had to make money, we’d send you to Alberta, put you on the oil rigs. You could be a garbage man. You can literally pay the bills a million different ways, but you tell me how many people live their dream?’ I was like, ‘You’re right. I’m gonna chase this down.’”

Six years and seven days after losing to Morales to fall to 1-2 inside the Octagon, Zahabi will stride out to face Aldo at home, carrying a five-fight winning streak with him, a place in the Top 10 potentially hanging in the balance. And what would it mean to defeat “The King of Rio” and earn a sixth straight victory?

“Then there is excitement!” he shouts, a long, deep laugh chasing his words. “Beating Aldo would be a huge accomplishment for me, for my brother, for the team, for my family, for the city of Montreal. Then, it becomes a moment.“People want me to be happy about it now, like you were trying to tell me earlier, but if I don’t beat him, it ain’t the same,” he adds. “That’s why I gotta go out there and do it. Then we reap the rewards but until then…”