Zahabi: GSP & Khabib ‘deserve’ retirement, shouldn’t be asked to return

Firas Zahabi discusses Georges St-Pierre and Khabib Nurmagomedov’s retirements.

There’s been a lot of talk about a potential bout between dominant UFC champions Georges St-Pierre and Khabib Nurmagomedov, even after both are seemingly happy with their decisions to retire from mixed martial arts while on top of their games.

Firas Zahabi fielded questions about this possible match up, and he gave a similar response to his friend and pupil, about how they shouldn’t be pressured by anyone to return to competition.

“Listen, Khabib is retired, Georges is retired,” Zahabi said on his YouTube channel. “I’m happy to keep them retired.”

St-Pierre still trains daily as part of his lifestyle, but Zahabi says he wouldn’t dare push his buttons and pull him away from all the good things going on in his life right now. It goes the same for Khabib who has a lot of doors open for him now that he retired on top.

“I don’t want to get too involved,” he explained. “I don’t want to call Georges and say ‘Hey man, why don’t you get off the movie set? Why don’t you get off all these projects, leave your family, put your personal life on hold — and let’s do a training camp!’ I don’t have the heart to ask him to do that.

“He has to do that on his own. If he wants to do it, it’s got to come from deep down inside. That guy has written his story. He’s done it, Khabib has done it,” he said. “I don’t think we should ask them to come back. They should want to come back.

“Khabib has said how he wants to just be ‘free as an eagle.’ Who would I be to petition him online and pull him back in? I wouldn’t do that. Never. These guys — both Khabib and Georges — deserve their retirement.”

Interestingly enough, Dana White has recently said that Khabib was just “completely emotional” at UFC 254, but thinks he’s not actually going to retire until after trying to go 30-0.