Tristar wasn’t the first and certainly wasn’t the last gym that experienced a massive influx of interest and talent coming through the door in the years that St-Pierre ruled the 170-pound ranks, but it’s important to note that this isn’t some state-of-the-art facility or warehouse stationed on the outskirts of town that suddenly had a magnetic pull for dozens of world-class mixed martial artists.
The gym is housed on the third floor of a dreary, disheveled looking building a couple blocks from Gibeau Orange Julep. You wouldn’t know it’s there if you didn’t know to look for the stars in the windows, and when you climb the stairs and step into the space, you quickly see that everything has been built around the existing infrastructure.
Amanda Nunes Named To UFC Hall Of Fame Class Of 2025
Pillars wrapped in pads dot the mats. There is a complete Octagon, but there is also a caged-in section along the back wall that worked as the best option available before getting hold of a full-sized cage for your gym was as comparatively easy as it is now. Overhead fluorescent lights illuminate everything. To this day, there are sections where you’re still just doing work on a concrete floor.
But for a number of years, Tristar was the place people wanted to go train, and a litany of stars made the trip there, soaking in whatever knowledge Zahabi and the all-star cast of fighters and coaches assembled there were willing to dole out.
Several athletes from the Jackson-Winklejohn team in Albuquerque made the gym their second home, as did former WEC champ Miguel Torres. Young phenom Rory MacDonald moved to Montreal to train at Tristar full time as he started to work his way up the welterweight ranks, while the TUF Nations crew of Chad Laprise, the late Elias Theodorou, Olivier Aubin-Mercier, and Kajan Johnson, as well as TUF 20 alum Randa Markos, all had stretches where they did their camps in Montreal, at Tristar.
