{"id":278954,"date":"2018-06-20T07:52:12","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T14:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=278954"},"modified":"2018-06-20T07:52:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T14:52:12","slug":"firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/","title":{"rendered":"Firas Zahabi says he used to offer $5K to any student that could KO Georges St-Pierre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tristar head coach Firas Zahabi says that when former UFC middleweight and welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre was at the peak of his MMA superstardom, his training partners would often become star-struck by him, and dial back their sparring with him as a result. To ensure that St-Pierre got more aggressive versions of these star-struck training partners, Zahabi would offer $5,000 to anybody who could put the champ down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe reach those high intensity levels periodically through the year, and we have to do it a certain way so that it\u2019s fun,&#8221; Zahabi told Joe Rogan on <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/xDsoWp743gM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The JRE MMA Show<\/a> (transcribed by Mike Bohn for <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.com\/2018\/06\/georges-st-pierre-training-partners-offered-5k-knockout-firas-zahabi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MMAjunkie<\/a>). &#8220;Georges was on your show, and he was saying I was trying to kill him in the practice room. He\u2019s right, but I do it so rarely. I do it so periodically. I make it a joke. I brought the guys in a room, and I was watching them spar with Georges, and they don\u2019t want to touch his face. This is when he was like a mega-star, when he was the champ. Nobody wants to try to double leg him; nobody wants to try to hurt him. They\u2019re like, \u2018I\u2019m not going to come here in his house and try to show him.\u2019 There\u2019s a respect thing. They\u2019re starstruck, these young kids.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would bring in these young kids, and I would be like, \u2018Listen, guys.\u2019 I would give them a speech: \u2018The first guy to double leg him, the first guy to put him out, I\u2019ll give a $5,000 reward. If you knock Georges out, I\u2019ll give you 5,000 bucks. If you put Georges on his back, if you take him down, put him on his back, I\u2019ll stop the whole practice and praise you for 20 minutes in front of everybody in the gym.\u2019 And students don\u2019t get praised by me very often. Georges would be like, \u2018Oh my God, these guys are coming after me!\u2019 So he would get riled up. I would do this periodically. We\u2019re talking about world title fights, stuff\u2019s on the line. I need these guys to show me where Georges is missing something. Because when you\u2019re having this \u2018perfect practice,\u2019 and you win all the time, what do you work on? Nothing went wrong, there\u2019s nothing to fix. So there were times I would really red-light him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What do you think of this strategy from Georges St-Pierre&#8217;s coach?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPenn.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 6\/20\/2018. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tristar head coach Firas Zahabi says that when former UFC middleweight and welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre was at the peak of his MMA superstardom, his training partners would often become star-struck by him, and dial back their sparring with him as a result. To ensure that St-Pierre got more aggressive versions of these star-struck training [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":278955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10140],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Firas Zahabi says he used to offer $5K to any student that could KO Georges St-Pierre | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Firas Zahabi says he used to offer $5K to any student that could KO Georges St-Pierre | BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tristar head coach Firas Zahabi says that when former UFC middleweight and welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre was at the peak of his MMA superstardom, his training partners would often become star-struck by him, and dial back their sparring with him as a result. To ensure that St-Pierre got more aggressive versions of these star-struck training [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"| BJPenn.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bjpenn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-20T14:52:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/wp-content\/uploads\/Georges-St-Pierre.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"399\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bjpenndotcom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tom Taylor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tom Taylor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#\/schema\/person\/e1a3f1e5a045aeaf5b59aa1549a06a87\"},\"headline\":\"Firas Zahabi says he used to offer $5K to any student that could KO Georges St-Pierre\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-20T14:52:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-06-20T14:52:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/\"},\"wordCount\":438,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Georges St. Pierre\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2018\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/\",\"name\":\"Firas Zahabi says he used to offer $5K to any student that could KO Georges St-Pierre | BJPenn.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-20T14:52:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-06-20T14:52:12+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/firas-zahabi-says-he-used-to-offer-5k-to-any-student-that-could-ko-georges-st-pierre\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"MMA News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Georges St. Pierre\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/georges-st-pierre\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":4,\"name\":\"Firas Zahabi says he used to offer $5K to any student that could KO Georges St-Pierre\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\",\"name\":\"| BJPenn.com\",\"description\":\"MMA &amp; 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