Zahabi: St. Pierre Is Injured, Not Just Hurt

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If Georges St. Pierre could have finished up his training camp for Carlos Condit, he would have fought him Saturday at UFC 137, according to trainer Firas Zahabi.

After injuring his knee last week, though, the UFC welterweight champion just could not continue his preparation. In an interview with the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show, Zahabi discussed how the injury happened, St. Pierre’s current status and more.

Zahabi on how St. Pierre was injured: “He was sprawling out in just regular sparring -- kickboxing sparring mixed with takedowns, like we usually do. He just sprawled in an awkward way, tweaked his knee, started moving around … and his knee was just badly sprained. He wasn’t able to continue the sparring. He was limping that day immediately after. We iced him down. We sent him to get an MRI, and they said he wouldn’t be able to train for another month or so. Obviously we had to pull the plug on the fight.”

On being injured compared to being hurt: “I’ve never seen a single fighter go in the fight 100-percent healthy. I know a lot of guys say that, but there’s always bumps and bruises. There’s always something bothering the fighter. You can grab paper and a pen and I can write you a whole list of things that were bothering Georges for this fight, but those things are normal. There’s a difference between being hurt and being injured. Definitely fighters are hurt before they go into a fight, but they’re not injured. This is an injury. What an injury is, it doesn’t allow you to continue training. Even if you wanted to, you just physically cannot. That was the difference. That was why we had to pull the plug, simply because he was not able to move around or box or wrestle whatsoever. If he was, he would have fought.”

On the Condit camp saying the bout’s postponement could work to their benefit: “If I were in their shoes, I’d be super pleased. They get to go back and game plan and work the game plan and develop the aspects of his game that he needs to get ready for Georges. And you know, when we play that game, I’m very confident in our coaching staff. I like to have more time because we were pointing Georges in a different direction for [Nick] Diaz, and now when we got Carlos, things were different. The preparation was different. We brought in some different sparring partners. You have to adjust your training, and I’m glad we have more time because I really believe Georges’ team, we are the best at preparing Georges for what he needs to do. The more time, the more he’ll be prepared.”

On St. Pierre’s current status: “He is doing some work in the pool. He’s doing therapy work. He’s with his therapist now. He’s getting treatment. He’s doing everything he can to work on not just his knee but his whole body. He can’t do any impact at all. He’s in the pool doing everything he can to stabilize his shoulders, his elbows, his legs, his hips. He’s working on everything he’s allowed to work on, and even though he can’t do any martial arts training, he’s still doing his therapy, his rehab. You can trust Georges to be working around the clock.”

Listen to the full interview (beginning at 1:28:10).