Igår valde UFC:s VD Dana White att kritisera ett av världens mest framgångsrika gym i American Kickboxing Academy (AKA). Han kallade dem för ett ”stenålders-gym” och hade tungviktsmästaren Cain Velasquez (13-1) återkommande skador som ett bevis på detta. Nu har gymmets huvudtränare Javier Mendes såväl som lägrets mest berömda fighters valt att svara på detta.
AKA besitter några av sportens största stjärnor men ändå valde Dana White att beklaga sig över gymmets beslut att låta Cain Velasquez och Daniel ”DC” Cormier sparras stenhårt varje vecka. Gymmets coach, Javier Mendes, verkar dock ta uttalanden som en gåva: ”I love the fact that he’s bringing attention to that and it does help me look to ways to improve. I love the fact that he’s bringing attention to that and it does help me look to ways to improve. That’s why I love Dana, he brought attention so we can correct ourselves. From the beginning of MMA training, we’re always going to evolve. It shows he cares, but he’s wrong for accusing us. I think he’s primarily accusing us because we have the heavyweight champion. If you want to get rid of injuries, you’ll have to get rid of the UFC”, säger han till MMA Fighting.
Mendes säger att majoriteten av Velasquez skador har kommit inuti oktagonen men han inser även att framförallt brottningsträning leder till att fler fighters tvingas ställa in sina fighter men att detta bara är en del av sporten. ”Are we gonna not wrestle? If you don’t wrestle live (all out), and you face the guy from the other gym who is wrestling live, who is going to have the advantage? You have got to wrestle”. Han säger även att gymmet har en regel att om någon blir golvad under ett sparringpass så får inte den personen sparras igen på 30 dagar.
”We’re an old school gym, not a stone age gym”
Cain Velasquez håller inte med White om att gymmet är uråldrigt utan att deras filosofi lett till fntastiska resultat: ”You know what, I’ve always considered this gym as an old school gym. He says stone age, I say old school. The best way to prepare for a fight is to fight. Yeah, I’ve had some injuries. But when we fight, nobody says we’re not training right when they look at the way we fight. We’re going to keep doing it. We could get injured again, but you don’t come into training with those thoughts. I don’t go in thinking about getting injured. We go to work, beat each other up, just like a fight. We don’t go into a fight with those thoughts either”.
Luke Rockhold (14-2) som också tränar vid AKA tycker att White fokuserar för mycket på Velasquez istället för att se på alla andra fighters som hållt sig friska genom åren. ””It’s my camp, but I think a lot of that falls on Cain because he’s the face of our gym, he’s the heavyweight champion and the baddest man on the planet. Him having injuries and not fighting that much reflects on us, but at the same time, we’re the best gym in the world. You want to say that we don’t do things right, but we’re the best gym in the world. I think we have a lot of healthy fighters who are constantly fighting”.
Lagkaptenen ger sin åsikt
Slutligen ger den före detta utmanaren i lätt tungvikt tillika lagets kapten, Daniel ”DC” Cormier (15-1)sin syn på det hela: ”We’ve made some changes in our training. Cain and I go super hard, like really hard. For all the praise we get inside the Octagon for our ability to control fights, it all develops from inside that room. It’s not like we just turn it on in the Octagon. We get it from that room. It’s tough because we’re both good fighters.
We go hard on Monday, really hard. Tuesday we wrestle hard. Wednesday we spar differently. Cain and I spar and it’s hard and it’s like a fight. But with everyone else, it’s not as hard. It’s still good sparring, but you can control the sparing. Friday we use smaller gloves and focus on wrestling. We’re only sparring hard one day a week and that’s the most we’re willing to do. Cain’s had some bad luck with injures, but as bad as they are, most of them were from fights. It’ll get better. That’s the most we’re willing to change to we can be confident going into the Octagon”.
