“It was a tough call to make, but my brother said, ‘Look, the next fight, you’re coming off a loss, so we want to put on a show. We want to have a big win. We don’t want to risk a weight cut affecting your performance.’

“So I turned that last minute fight down too. Then I was really trying hard to push for December, but it was full too, so I didn’t get a spot on that card. But now I’m on this one, so it is what it is.”

In addition to being a proud new father and spending time with his family, Zahabi has used his time away to commit to improving every facet of his game in advance of his return.

“The fact that I didn’t fight for 18 months is a blessing in many ways, which is why I’m not upset about it taking this long,” he said. “I’m not angry that it took me this much time to get back because I put that time to good use and now I have more confidence going into this fight than I did the Ramos fight, even though I’m coming off a loss.

“I don’t think I looked bad,” he said, reflecting on his loss. “I didn’t perform badly. Getting knocked out is bad, but it gave me the opportunity to look inside more, be more truthful with myself, do some self-reflection and patch as many holes in my game as possible.”