AIEMANN ZAHABI | OUT OF THE SHADOWS

In the lead-up to this month’s pay-per-view in Montreal, Zahabi actively downplayed the significance of competing in his hometown and doing so in the biggest fight of his career, against an all-time great.

It’s not that the moment wasn’t meaningful to him, but he just didn’t want to put himself in a situation where he got too wrapped up in competing at home only to come away disappointed if things didn’t play out the way he was anticipating. But once the night was in the rearview mirror and victory was in hand, the 37-year-old bantamweight was finally ready to open up about what the week and fight night itself meant to him.

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“It’s like a storybook moment for me; like a Rocky story, you know?” begins Zahabi, who extended his winning streak to six and rose to No. 11 in the divisional rankings on the strength of his win over Aldo. “It was huge; it was bigger than I could have thought.

As the team pondered their options in their hotel room, Zahabi started consulting those in his inner circle, including his eldest brother, Ahmad, who is a PhD in molecular biology as well as a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt.

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“I called my eldest brother — he was freaking out,” Zahabi says, laughing. “He was like, ‘We’re not doing this s***! One pound, two pounds — I understand; it’s a little adversity. Eight pounds? You guys are out of your minds!’ He’s a PhD in molecular biology and he’s very scientific, so he was trying to make sure we understood the physical risk.

“But the physical risk also has a psychological risk, because when I lost to Ramos by KO, it was hard for me to come back, psychologically,” continues the Montreal native, touching on his knockout loss to Ricardo Ramos at UFC 217 that left him pondering his future in the sport. “It’s happened to friends of mine — David Loiseau and others — who never really bounced back after KOs, so that’s the risk my brother Ahmad was trying to bring in.

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“In the end, I understood the risk, but I said, ‘It’s still Aldo, and how much can people talk bad about me if I risk it all and I come up short against Aldo, and if I come up short against Aldo after accepting an eight-pound weight difference?’”

People may want to point to the official weigh-ins and suggest there wasn’t an eight-pound difference between the two athletes when they each stepped on the scale, as Aldo came in at 143 pounds, with Zahabi coming in a pound lighter.

But the difference was in the weight that each fighter cut, and anyone with an understanding of the sport and the difference between Zahabi getting to 136.8 pounds before being informed of Aldo’s situation and the Brazilian superstar never getting lower than what he registered on Friday morning is significant.

It’s a fact of the fight that doesn’t show up when you look at his record or scan any of the fighter databases that track results and make note of these things, as officially, Aldo didn’t miss weight, which is why the ascending bantamweight was extremely happy to hear Jon Anik and Dominick Cruz explain the situation in detail on the UFC 315 broadcast.

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“I appreciated Jon Anik and Dominick Cruz because they acknowledged the obstacle, and they gave me the credit by making sure the fans knew,” notes Zahabi, who sent messages to each man after watching the fight back and hearing their commentary. “It’s part of my legacy now and I don’t want it to ever be forgotten.

“Anybody who watches that fight should know.”

The weight situation on Friday was only the first serving of adversity that Zahabi went through in order to secure the biggest win of his career.

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After taking much of the first round to get a read on Aldo’s timing and movements, the French-Canadian fighter closed out the opening stanza with a solid final minute, and came out confidently in the second, returning to his corner following the frame confident that things were all even at one round apiece with momentum in his favor.

But early in the third, the momentum shifted.

Aldo came out aggressively and caught Zahabi with a right hand that rocked him, throwing off his equilibrium and leaving him stumbling around the cage in a desperate search for space and balance. Sensing a finish was at hand, the Brazilian gave chase and rocked him with a kick that sent the local boy tumbling to the canvas for a second time, forcing him to scramble once more.

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“I couldn’t control my body, so I was trying to rebalance myself,” explains Zahabi, recalling the chaotic moments early in the pivotal third round. “All I kept thinking to myself was ‘make space, catch your breath, win the next exchange; don’t stop moving until we can win the next exchange.’

“When I got up to my feet the second time and I hit him with the one-two and turned to run, it hurt him, and he wasn’t chasing me. I turned around, hit him again — boom-BOOM — and then he stopped.

“Then he hits me clean — BANG! — and I took two steps forward,” he continues, a smile sweeping across his face. “He just hit me and I took two steps forward. He backs down, and I saw his aura shrink. Then I was like, ‘Now we’re cooking! Now I’ve got him!’”

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It was in that moment where Aldo took a deep inhale and looked up at the clock, which showed a little over three minutes remaining in the round, with Zahabi, having cleared his head and found his footing, now marching forward confidently.

“I have a lot of things to be proud of in that fight, but one of the things that stands out the most to me is that he had me scrambling for 20 seconds, and when I got out of my thing, I stayed cool, calm, and composed,” says Zahabi, his exciting tone down-shifting to a more earnest, reflective vocal range. “When I had my moment, he fell apart and never came back. He panicked. He became erratic.

“He was trying to clinch me!” He adds, the excitement returning. “He shot on me!”

Over the second half of the frame, Zahabi was in complete control, working from top position inside Aldo’s guard, hammering down punches and elbows that ultimately left the Brazilian icon busted up and bleeding once the final horn sounded.

As the two men rose to their feet, their respective coaches hoisted them onto their shoulders and paraded them around the Octagon, one looked sure the verdict would fall in his favor and the other seemingly happy things had finally wrapped up.

Standing in the center of the cage, awaiting the official decision, Zahabi was fairly certain that he had just beaten the former featherweight champion.

“Best moment of my life, professionally, for sure, hands down,” he says, his smile still permanently etched on his face. “Beating a legend; one of the greatest fighters of all time. He missed weight by eight pounds; I took the fight anyway. Biggest payday of my life, and I did it in Montreal; GSP in my corner, Firas is there, my wife is in the crowd for the first time in five years — it was a lot of big moments and I finally get the worldwide recognition.”

Some may bristle at his mention of recognition in the wake of such a momentous victory, but in order to understand why this win, this moment meant so much to Zahabi, you have to understand all he’s gone through to reach this point.

Prior to reaching the UFC, he struggled to get fights, his name, reputation, and experience within the sport making it harder than normal to find opponents on the relatively sparse Canadian regional scene.

His signing with the UFC was met with criticism and complaints of favoritism, as folks lobbied for others they believed were “more deserving” or had done more to merit a chance to compete inside the Octagon should have been given the opportunity that was afforded to Zahabi.

After winning his debut, he was knocked out in spectacular fashion by Ramos. In the 18 months between that bout and his eventual return to action, he contemplated retirement, unsure whether he wanted to continue to subject himself to the risks inherent in a career forged inside the UFC cage. Even with the time off, his uncertainty showed in his comeback fight, a tepid decision loss to Vince Morales that left him on a two-fight skid, off the radar in the treacherous 135-pound weight class and with his back against the wall.

It wasn’t until last year, when he defeated Javid Basharat to run his winning streak to four that people finally started considering that he might be someone to keep tabs on in the bantamweight ranks, though his age still gave them pause. When he out-hustled Pedro Munhoz in Edmonton last November, Zahabi earned a place in the rankings, but even then, there were whispers and doubts; questions about how much Munhoz had left and whether the surging Canadian was really someone that commanded attention.

UFC 315 put a stop to questioning Zahabi’s standing in the division, and provided the hard-working talent the kind of breakthrough moment that has allowed him to step out from his brother’s shadow and carve out his own place in the MMA ecosystem.

“People are finally acknowledging me; I’m getting respect,” he says, the weight of his new reality and the impact of that night evident in his face. “I got text messages and shout outs from world class fighters and coaches from all over the world, and that means a lot to me.

“And (Aldo) gave me the drama that I needed to be respected in the sense that because I got dropped in the fight and came back — I don’t think people would respect me as much if I just smoked him; they would have written him off and not given me the credit.

“But that it happened the way it did…”

He trails off, looking away; words unnecessary to convey how much it meant to him.

“The average UFC career is two fights,” resumes Zahabi. “The average guy who makes it to the rankings doesn’t win in the rankings.