UFC 129 – Firas Zahabi predicts either Georges St. Pierre or Jake Shields will break under the pressure

Firas Zahabi, the head trainer of UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre has been speaking ahead of the Canadian’s historic fight with Jake Shields next weekend in front of 55,000 fans in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, predicting one of the men will crack under the enormous pressure placed on them.
Speaking via MMAFighting.com, Zahabi said:

“I can tell you, the first time we had Primetime around it was a lot harder. It was just more stress. Now, it’s the third time we’ve had them around, and we’ve had the Countdown so many times, just various other camera crews in our gym so many times, we’re accustomed to it. Now it doesn’t bother our training camp at all.

“That’s the whole thing, you have to know that the most important thing is still the fight. I wish we knew back then what we know now. The only important thing right now is Jake Shields. The other stuff, it isn’t going to be a factor for us. Maybe in the early stages of your career, having people supporting you gives you more motivation and makes you put more energy into your career, but these are things that don’t affect our team anymore.”

“Georges is a pressure fighter and so is Jake Shields. The first guy, in my opinion, to show signs of wear from the pressure is going to lose. It remains to be seen who that’s going to be.”

“Georges and Jake Shields both like to get in your face and keep the pressure on. That’s what’s going to happen, but there’s going to be one guy on the offense and one on defense. It might seesaw back and forth for a while, but one guy is going to break eventually and end up spending more time on defense. That’s the first sign of somebody breaking. You’re going to know what’s going to happen after that.”

St. Pierre and Shields will go head-to-head in the main event of the evening, with featherweight champion, Jose Aldo set to make his first title defence against Mark Hominick. In other action UFC “Hall of Famer” Randy Couture will take on former 205 pound champion, Lyoto Machida.