For the complete development of an athlete or a person, the right mentors are of supreme importance. Without the right coach, a fighter's arsenal becomes awfully inadequate, equally in his ability to study the techniques and trust his instincts.
While the external environment and circumstances play a more than essential role in shaping the person into the next best version of himself, reality is not as simple a matter, to be left merely on what happens in the outside world.
How a person perceives his life to be and the meaning he ascribes to it, is equally, if not more important than just trotting drills and putting in the hours. Our own subjective experience, though, by its very nature, is tainted with our past experiences and the monologues we have with ourselves on a daily basis.
Reality then becomes an intricate but astonishing dance between what is presented to us and what we bring to the table.
Wherever you go. There you are. - Zen Saying
This is a delicate chemistry to get right and often times; it doesn't exactly work out the way the fighters and the coaches intend it to. Here are five fighters who've been struggling to balance this sensitive equation and might benefit by a thorough re-evaluation of their strategy before moving forward.
Honourable mention: Chuck Lidell
The Former UFC Light Heavyweight champion Chuck Lidell had a legendary career but as the sport grew in notoriety and popularity, the Iceman found himself in a dilemma that was different when compared to most fighters of his time.
Being at the peak of his career, he observed that he was attending more dinners and meeting more new people than the hours he was putting into his training. As the disproportionate amount of time, he was already investing in partying grew, even more, he noted that he was struggling to even find motivation to show up at the gym.
A problem he suppressed for far too long.
After a fight of the year against Wanderlei Silva, Chuck confessed he had become too complacent. He ended up paying the price for it as he took Rashad Evans’ striking ability too lightly. Consequently, through what was one of the most shocking upsets of the year, a punch that landed flush on Lidell's chin, knocking him out instantly.
A feat that veteran Shogun Rua would then replicate in his next fight in a similar fashion.
A confused and extremely distraught Lidell then sought the services of high-performance mental coach Anthony Robbins to remove the cobwebs of self-doubt that always creep up on an individual in moments of frustration and agony.
However, after a long and pioneering run, perhaps, it was only fitting that a very stubborn but also perseverant Lidell, would go out against his own wishes by being knocked out for the third consecutive time, this time by Rich Franklin.
Chuck kept an open minded and benefitted greatly in his personal life from Tony's teachings but professionally, a man can only go on with an unsustainable practice for so long. One that no camp change can even begin to address.
#1 Matt Brown
Matt Brown is the most understandable person to be on the list and definitely not the most subtle in terms of the stacked up losses in his career. As a record of 20 wins and 16 losses rightfully points out, Brown has always struggled to maintain stability in terms of stacking up a win streak.
A portion of the answer may lie in him attending a very ordinary camp in Vegas, as he balanced the other side of the coin with a very elite camp with Matt Hume up in Washington. A gym that is home to the UFC Flyweight Champ and the pound for pound best Demetrious Johnson; a man who should need no introduction but usually ends up requiring one.
Brown faced a bunch of logistical issues with splitting training camps in Vegas and Washington and had a hard time being accountable to himself. Not receiving the amount of personal attention that he required also didn't help the cause.
After traversing the bumpy road that has been his career in the last few years, Brown met Duane Ludwig, the former head coach of Team Alpha Male and now the head coach at Elevation Fight Team in Denver, Colorado.
The sort of contagious passion that Duane Ludwig brings to the table has helped many fighters find him exceptionally likeable, as TJ Dillashaw would gladly testify. But cultivating such relationships take time and an acute awareness of the habits, as well as the mindset of the student, for the master to morph it into something of use.
“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” - Warren Buffett
Brown joined the camp in desperate times, after losing a hard-fought but one-sided submission loss to the up-and-coming Welterweight contender, Damian Maia. Ludwig and company at Elevation Fight Team sought to fill the major holes in Matt Brown's striking game.
They began by handling Brown's tendency to over-rely on his go-to tactics of forcing a clinch game and dirty boxing, by balancing it out with an emphasis on kicks to maintain distance so he would be able to utilise his strength in boxing exchanges.
A plan that has, unluckily, not borne much fruit as Brown is riding a three-fight losing streak with all of them being finishes. Perhaps fighting an unranked opponent for a tune up fight to get back on track would be a better option than getting back in the mix straight away.
#2 Sage Northcutt
Sage Northcutt is the golden boy of the UFC, a title that I believe he rightfully deserves. While regular kids played out in the park and watched TV, Sage and his sister travelled the country competing in Karate and Kickboxing tournaments and slaying the competition.
Mr Northcutt sure had a remarkably laborious and yet strangely odd childhood. While it would be presumptuous of us to assume how the father-son dynamic between Sage and his father actually is, it is fair to say that it has not been producing results expected from a UFC calibre fighter.
Equipped with good stand up skills but an understandably average ground game, Sage was always aware of the colossal hole that many a fighter on the roster would be glad to exploit. (Contain your imagination)
Maybe taking a massive leap of faith in his own mind, Sage left his dad's gym and guidance and sought out better and more knowledgeable mentors.
In his pursuit of excellence, Mr Northcutt joined the Tristar gym led by the great Firas Zahabi. While the progress he made was phenomenal, Sage missed the cordial environment at home and convinced himself (or was convinced) to leave the esteemed tutelage of Firas Zahabi.
Meanwhile, after the Barberena fight, it was obvious that the hole was a big one and was there for everyone to see. (Contain your imagination, Please)
Possibly realising this mistake, Sage Northcutt has now started training extensively at Roufusport, home to the former Lightweight king Anthony Pettis and the current Welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, who used the services of Sage expansively to train for his first title defence against Stephen Thompson.
However, it is a gym that’s not exactly renowned for its ground game speciality, and it will be interesting to see how Sage manages to cover this deficit in due time.
#3 Travis Browne
At 6'7 Travis Browne is a behemoth of a man and a fighter who knows (knew?) how to utilise his range and movement. With one of the widest stances in the Heavyweight division, Browne relies heavily on his responsive footwork and quick hands. Ironically, the two attributes that have almost vanished from Browne's battery.
In the last few years, we observed Browne's strengths turn into liabilities in the form of rigid and slow movement along with predictable striking angles. But this was not always the case. Earlier in his career, Browne was a force to be reckoned with, boasting dominant finishes over the likes of Alistair Overeem and Josh Barnett.
As he trained with fellow Heavyweight elite and future foe Andrei Arlovski, and Light Heavyweight phenom Jon Jones, Browne showed no signs of stopping, until he faced Fabricio Werdum for the first time; against whom he was the heavy betting favourite.
Despite the odds stacked against Werdum, Browne was out struck by Werdum for nearly all five rounds and could only manage one knockdown in the entire fight as a somewhat substantial moment.
This was only a one-time incident though, and no conclusive evidence regarding Browne's training could be drawn from just one performance. Incidentally, Browne's had recently joined Glendale Fight Club, training under Edmond Tarverdyan alongside girlfriend Ronda Rousey.
The next string of fights, however, was laced with Browne doubting his own abilities as a striker, showing predictable movement, low accuracy of strikes and overall being a shadow of his former self.
Against Matt Mitrione, Browne managed to win with a fairly controversial decision by exhibiting collectively innumerable illegal strikes and continuing despite Mitrione's upheaval to the referee, which is reminiscent of Aldo kicking the Korean Zombie in the same shoulder he dislocated during the fight.
While it is unwise to stop before the referee tells you to, the act didn't particularly highlight Browne's abilities inside the Octagon, much less his character.
His career took even more of a downward spiral as Browne lost to Cain Valasquez via TKO in one of the most one-sided fights of his career. Although most expected Browne to pose a few problems to Valasquez, the Mexican’s sheer dominance caused a lot of questions on the state of the Heavyweight division and the lack of true contenders.
Browne then went on to lose one of the most controversial and odd fights that we have seen in a long time in his rematch against Fabricio Werdum. A fight in which his head coach Edmond Tarverdyan lost his temper and ended up getting kicked by Fabricio Werdum. Needless to say, he set a very bad example for his fighter and his own brand.
Conceivably, it would be wise to reconsider a move back to Jackson-Wink and save whatever is left of his unrealised potential.
#4 Rashad Evans
Rashad Evans is a seasoned veteran and has gone through many ups and downs in his career. Despite being the shortest and second lightest fighter on the roster on TUF 2, Rashad managed to grind out many decision wins during his tenure on TUF and ultimately ended up winning the show, by defeating a 6'7 goliath of a fighter in Brad Imes with a hard-fought split decision in his favour.
On his rise to title contention as an undefeated prospect in the UFC, Rashad managed to string together 13 straight wins to win the UFC Light Heavyweight championship. While he was handed his first loss in the form of a brutal knockout by Lyoto Machida on his first title defence, Evans still meandered around the top of the heap in the Light Heavyweight division.
On the other hand, after his decision to leave the Jackson-Wink Academy for a then newly found Blackzilians, he never looked the same. After losing a one-sided decision to Jon Jones, which no one blamed him for, Evans then went on to lose convincingly to Lil' Nog in a very uncharacteristic fashion.
Fortunately, he was able to snap the losing streak by barely being able to defeat the completely unmatched Dan Henderson in a back-and-forth battle. After his next fight against Sonnen, which he won by TKO, things started to look better for 'Suga'.
Though not for long, as he once again lost a gruelling decision to an unseemly opponent in Ryan Bader, followed by a brutal KO loss to the heavy-handed Glover Teixeira. Evans has since then decided to move down to 185 lbs but has regrettably been incapable to be cleared medically by the doctors for a mixed martial arts contest.
Rashad Evans' career is on a slippery slope, and he does not have too much time to bring it together as he nears his forties. Hopefully, Evans will be able to make one more title run before hanging up his gloves; a decision that he would much rather like to make out of choice rather than desperation. An option that Urijah Faber had the good luck to choose.
#5 Anthony Pettis
Anthony Pettis has a finesse in his striking that only comes from years of hard work on the pads with a heavily scrutinising eye of a respected mentor. Pettis found himself as a protégée under Kickboxing legend Duke Roufus, who helped shape Pettis to become an exceptionally dominant and feared striker with tremendously underrated submission skills on his rise to the top.
Having finished the likes of Donald Cerrone, Benson Henderson and Gilbert Melendez, Pettis was almost unstoppable on his way to capturing the UFC Lightweight title. He was also the first UFC fighter to be featured on a box of Wheaties; an unusual achievement to list but something that was testament to the rising popularity of Pettis and the sport of MMA.
The seemingly smooth transition to the top, however, changed into an uphill battle for the ages that saw Anthony Pettis struggle with high-level grapplers such as Rafael Dos Anjos and Eddie Alvarez. This was when Pettis decided to acquire the services of Jon Jones' wrestling coach Izzy Martinez to work on his takedown defence and power play in the clinch.
The next time Anthony would face an opponent in the Octagon, conversely, was one that would test his striking more than the wrestling.
In a failed attempt to snap the losing streak, Pettis looked extremely washed out against fellow striking phenom in Edson Barboza whose speed and variety while delivering strikes was extremely apparent.
After three decision losses, Pettis decided to move down to Featherweight and ended up submitting submission specialist Charles Oliviera, a win that Pettis desperately required to avoid being cut by the organisation in which he was the kingpin not so long ago.
After the range of problems UFC 206 went through, which included UFC being unable to book GSP, the cancellation of Cormier vs. Johnson 2 due to the former’s injury, Conor Mcgregor had to be stripped of the Featherweight Championship to save the day, and in the process, Pettis got gifted a free opportunity to fight for the Interim Featherweight title.
A very unlikely yet desirable twist of fate for Pettis, but as fate would have it, to make things more complicated, Pettis failed to make weight for the first time on the most important opportunity of his career to become a potential two division champion.
As an extremely disappointed Pettis entered the Octagon, it sure affected the way he performed as he saw himself being a little too hesitant, flinching and over analysing the attacks that were once second nature to him.
His adversary, Max Holloway capitalised on the situation as Pettis saw himself being out struck with a healthy mixture of striking and continued pressure; a perennial weakness of Pettis. A weakness that ended up costing Pettis the gold. Pettis could possibly use some psychological help along with his usual training to combatively get rid of the slump that he has been in. A decision that he needs to act upon urgently.
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