Aaron Pico has had many talking about his spinning back elbow knockout loss at UFC 319. But a fighter who lost to that same technique and has since become a ranked UFC contender has offered the former Bellator MMA star some advice on how to bounce back from that kind of defeat.

That referenced fighter is Aiemann Zahabi. The Canadian combatant will take on former UFC bantamweight title challenger Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera at UFC Vancouver. This battle of ranked bantamweight contenders occurs on October 18th. Zahabi appeared on MMA Canada to cover several subjects ahead of that key bout.

The Tristar product was not always the number ten-ranked bantamweight contender in the promotion though. In fact, Zahabi has rebounded impressively from a spinning back elbow KO loss to Ricardo Ramos at UFC 217. Though he did have a subsequent loss after UFC 217 on points to Vince Morales, Aiemann Zahabi has now put together a six-fight win streak in the octagon.

Considering this context and what advice Aiemann Zahabi would give to Aaron Pico in this rebuilding process after that UFC 319 loss to Lerone Murphy, Zahabi said,

“Yeah. Well, listen, I think in my opinion, Aaron Pico is a very well-rounded fighter when it comes to wrestling skills, boxing skills, jiu-jitsu skills. He’s got aces in all of these categories. Physical conditioning through the roof, mental toughness, fortitude, willingness to fight, courage, he has everything that it takes.”

“Okay, this is like, you know, 90% of all the problems are solved. Okay, now it’s like what are the decisions you’re making in the octagon? you know, maybe he could have won that round letting the fight breathe a little more, you know. Because he was doing so well, you know, and I’m not saying, you know, play it safe.”

“What I’m saying is you score, you take a breath, you let the guy do his reaction, you come back. But he kept staying on him like glue at all times. And you know, it’s hard to do that in the top 10. You know, I get it, outside guys just signed to the UFC off The Ultimate Fighter. You want to dominate them.”

“You want to crush them. But guys who’ve proven to be top contenders, they’re not breakable. Like it’s hard to just dismantle them with pressure because they’ve seen a lot of things. They’ve fought a lot of guys. They have many years of experience.”

“They probably are close to you in wrestling, grappling, and striking, and they don’t panic anymore, right? So, sometimes you got to let things play out, like you got to be in there. You got to make something happen. You got to let; to see, you know; because they’re also adapting for you.”

“So, at the highest level, you know, [Floyd] Mayweather said it best, the greatest champions adapt to anything. All right? So, you can’t expect [the] fight to continue the same way. So, I knew like; let’s say when I’m fighting a guy like [Jose] Aldo, whatever happened in round one, it may not come back in round two.”

Aiemann Zahabi on Aaron Pico: “I would love for us to work together”

As he continued to expound upon Aaron Pico’s UFC debut in Chicago and what the road ahead could look like, Zahabi continued,

“It may not. whatever happens in round two may not be round three. You know, like there; they could be individual; every round is an individual fight in a way because they go back to their corner, they’re going to get advice, they might change things around completely, right?”

“So, I just think that, you know, maybe if he scales back the aggression and it’s easy to criticize, you know, we’re outside looking in. He could have knocked him out. I don’t know. I don’t know. And I’m not judging. I’m not judging.”

“But if I were just to give him advice because I, you know; we have mutual friends and I would love to train with him and I would love for us to work together. He seems like a great guy. I was just like, you know, sometimes taper off, come back on, taper off, come back on, you know, like stuff like that.”

“Because, you know, you watch The Fighting Nerds, The Fighting Nerds, they have a great like; they put on the action, they whoop, they take a second, they step back, they see what’s going on, they put the action again, and then they finish the guy. It’s incredible, their mix of the things.”

“And I feel like we all need help. Like I need help. I need work on that, too. Like maybe it’s, I need to [have] more aggression, you know? Maybe it means take more risk. You know, everyone needs to; we’re always dialing in. You know, if perfection is unreachable, then fine-tuning is infinite.”

“We are; we can all be criticized. That’s why like, you know, if he hears this, I don’t want him to think it as a judgment. It’s more like we all need things and he’s going to see things about my game that he can tell me about. You know, we all need refinement.”