Throughout the history of sports there have been many instances of coaches having to take extra measures to push the all-time greats. So it’s no surprise that Firas Zahabi did that for former UFC two-division champion Georges St-Pierre, as well.

St-Pierre (26-2 MMA, 20-2 UFC) is one of the most successful fighters in MMA history, having claimed titles at welterweight and middleweight and owning some of the most significant records in UFC history. All along the way, Zahabi, the lead trainer at Tristar Gym in Montreal, has been by St-Pierre’s side.

“Rush” didn’t achieve greatness all on his own, though. He had to go through some hellacious training sessions to stay on his game year over year, and in order to establish continued dominance at a world-class level, Zahabi said he offered money to St-Pierre’s training partners to go hard at the French-Canadian.

Zahabi explained his method during an interview Tuesday on the “JRE MMA Show” podcast.

“We reach those high intensity levels periodically through the year, and we have to do it a certain way so that it’s fun. Georges was on your show, and he was saying I was trying to kill him in the practice room. He’s 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’t 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’re like, ‘I’m not going to come here in his house and try to show him.’ There’s a respect thing. They’re starstruck, these young kids. “I would bring in these young kids, and I would be like, ‘Listen, guys.’ I would give them a speech: ‘The first guy to double leg him, the first guy to put him out, I’ll give a $5,000 reward. If you knock Georges out, I’ll give you 5,000 bucks. If you put Georges on his back, if you take him down, put him on his back, I’ll stop the whole practice and praise you for 20 minutes in front of everybody in the gym.’ And students don’t get praised by me very often. Georges would be like, ‘Oh my God, these guys are coming after me!’ So he would get riled up. I would do this periodically. We’re talking about world title fights, stuff’s on the line. I need these guys to show me where Georges is missing something. Because when you’re having this ‘perfect practice,’ and you win all the time, what do you work on? Nothing went wrong, there’s nothing to fix. So there were times I would really red-light him.”

Zahabi said his approach to pushing St-Pierre almost always turned out for the better. St-Pierre, who hasn’t fought since winning the 185-pound title from Michael Bisping at UFC 217 in November and then vacating it just 33 days later, always made it through the grind, and Zahabi never had to cough up the $5,000.

There was one time St-Pierre got rocked badly in practice, though, but Zahabi said the money wasn’t up for grabs.

“He’s been dropped once in practice pretty badly. But the money wasn’t on the line that time. There was no prize for that. One time he got dropped in practice, and I wanted to pull the plug. It was for a world title fight. He was fighting Dan Hardy.”

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