“I don’t want to see anyone stop until that timer sounds.”
In a sea of weary bodies, Coach Robert Follis is giving his fighters one last push as they head into the homestretch of what has been a grueling two-hour grappling session. The smiles and good nature that existed on the faces of veterans like Gray Maynard and Miesha Tate back when things were just getting underway on the back mats of Xtreme Couture have now been replaced by that unique brand of grit fighters tap into when their bodies are tired but their determination is raging.
Maynard underhooks then drops down before dumping his partner on the ground. Tate shimmies to the left with her back against the wall before turning the tides on her male counterpart. The bodies hit the mat in near unison just as Roy Nelson has to put a spastic and overzealous grappling partner in check. The poor soul didn’t do his homework on just how well “Big Country” moves, and just before the final buzzer of the session sounds, Nelson’s hips and bulk have given the up-and-coming fighter an education in gravity.
With the pro team practice now at an end, a large percentage of bodies are bent over at the waist trying to shake off the wear and strain, while others like Nelson carom over to chat with Follis. On my journey across the country on the MMA Road Trip Project, with time spent in the majority of top gyms in mixed martial arts, the intensity of the practice that went down that Tuesday night had few peers.
It was a packed house at Xtreme Couture—with a mixture of seasoned UFC veterans and emerging talent—and each and every one of them gave everything their bodies could muster during that session. Although the gym’s pulse is now beating stronger than it has in years, a short time back it was a much grimmer picture for the Las Vegas staple.
The core group of fighters who brought the gym to prominence, much like its legendary namesake, had all drifted off to explore other endeavors—leaving longtime striking coach Ray Sefo and his Hawaiian protege Brad Tavares as the two biggest entities on the roster. Yet, much like a rising tide of fortune on the tables several miles away on the Las Vegas strip, new talent would arrive just as founding members decided to make the pilgrimage back to their roots.
Before the practice began, Follis was posed with the question of whether or not the gym he now coaches was experiencing a renaissance of sorts—a query he played off with cool measure.
“I’m not even sure what that word means,” he said as he looked through the cage moments before calling his team to the center of the mat.
Two hours later, as his fighters began to file out of the practice space, Follis strolled over my way once more to reiterate the notion that the term renaissance was still lost upon him. That said, Follis must have forgotten I’d interviewed him several times before and had a grip on his intelligence, or he was just playing sly like the savvy grappling guru he is.
As several fighters were stretching and cooling down from a rigorous workout, Maynard and Jay Hieron were finishing up their night with some comic relief. Alongside Mike Pyle and Martin Kampmann, they were part of the original team at Xtreme Couture and helped (literally) put the place together. When asked if the mats they were standing on were laid with their own hands, Hieron took time to shed light on the real history of how things played out.
“Sh**,” he laughed as he shot a look in Maynard’s direction. “I laid these mats. Pretty boy over there didn’t have to do a damn thing. Ain’t that right, golden boy?”
Although his friend was attempting to call out his “diva” status, through the laughs Maynard added, “Jay is telling the truth, but he’s leaving out the part that he was the only one that had to lay the mats. Randy [Couture] had to make sure he got something out of him to earn his keep.”
While the two seasoned veterans continued to crack on one another well after the practice time had expired, the overall mood in the aftermath of a grueling session was just one more sign that things are rolling better than ever at Xtreme Couture. There is a solid squad of talent under Follis these days, and he runs a tight ship where his athletes are concerned.
Yet, Follis isn’t one to take credit for anything more than providing direction and gives all the due to the fighters who walk through the doors to improve their games.
“The way I look at it is that we only get a limited amount of time on that mat and I want to make the most of it,” Follis told Bleacher Report. “I also don’t want things to drag out. When we are down there for three hours, I’m asking why we are wasting an hour and a half. I want there to be a purpose to what is being done and we are going to work on skills that matter. Let’s work hard and get out and not waste any time in between.
“When we are in private training sessions it’s obviously different, but when we are doing a group practice I’m trying to provide fundamentals that everybody is going to need. We are drilling for solid takedowns and defense…stuff that is generally going to fit everyone’s game or defensive side. Once I get to know my fighters, I show them tweaks to add when they are working in different positions. When we are working one-on-one, we get more specific, but in group practices I try to keep it very vanilla. I call it ‘101’ material.
“I also try to get around and give attention to the people who earn it,” he added. “The legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden used to write his players a letter at the beginning of every year and he would tell them, ‘You won’t all get equal attention, but you will all get the attention you earn.’ The fighters that get attention from me are the ones who are committed, show up every time and are putting in the work.”
In the surge of fighters who have come to call Xtreme Couture home once more, Maynard and Nelson seem to bring particular energies to the team. “The Bully” rose from prospect to title challenger inside the facility located on Sunset Avenue and has returned to inject new life into his career. On the other end, Nelson has historically been a one-man wolf pack, but the recently amplified numbers—especially in the big boy department—give the heavy-handed knockout artist the type of workout partners he needs.
“Big bodies are hard to find,” Nelson said. “That’s not just in Vegas but pretty much anywhere in the country. It’s not just that I need to train with other heavyweights, but I need to get different looks and for that to happen people have to show up on a consistent basis. I’ve been able to get some good work in here and it’s good to see people coming back to the gym.”
Maynard echoed Nelson’s sentiment but added further emphasis on the coaching of Robert Follis and his team at Xtreme Couture.
“Everything here is about structure and that’s awesome,” the former lightweight title challenger added as he slipped on a pair of blue jeans. “You know exactly what time practices are going to start and what you are going to be training that day. It may seem simple, but structure and direction play such a key role in training.”
Throughout his rise from prospect to certified threat in the UFC middleweight division, Tavares has seen the tides of his gym rise and fall then rise again in the ever-changing world of the fight game. The Hawaiian striker came to Xtreme Couture fresh off his stint on The Ultimate Fighter and has become a seasoned vet throughout his time representing the fight team at Xtreme Couture.
While Tavares has always been a steadfast member of the XC squad, he couldn’t be happier with how things are working at the gym in the current realm.
“It’s been great to see,” Tavares said. “When I got out here to Las Vegas there were a lot of fighters at the gym. I was this kid from Hawaii that nobody knew about and one of the first guys who invited me to train and accepted me was Jay Hieron. When I came in he needed help preparing for Joe Riggs and needed a southpaw, and that was my opportunity to get in with these guys so I jumped on the chance.
“At that time there were a lot of big names in the gym and slowly for whatever reason, the gym started to fall apart a little bit. People were leaving for different reasons and the overall team bond wasn’t there. People still fought out of this space, but I wouldn’t necessarily call us a team at that time. Myself and a few other guys stayed there and we made it work. We had to go over to a different gym to get our sparring in, but we stuck it out at Xtreme Couture. Over the last year a lot of big changes have gone down and it’s made all the difference.
“Dennis Davis took over our pro program and that guy has made a lot of sacrifices to revitalize the team,” he added. “He took a cut in his pay so we could have Robert Follis come out and for him to do that shows how much he cares about the team. When you have people like that who truly care about the team and the interest of the fighters; that’s a great building block.”
With a solid core group intact, and other talented fighters returning to train at the gym, Follis is excited to see how the road ahead develops for the fight team at Xtreme Couture. Alongside his team of coaches, the seasoned leader has been a key reason the gym that was one of the most successful collectives in MMA has regained some of its past prominence on the sport’s landscape.
“It feels good but I can’t take all the credit,” Follis said. “This has been a team effort. It’s the fighters buying into it and the other coaches like Dennis Davis providing coaching and backup structure through the gym. Randy [Couture] wanted to back it and get the fight team going again. Ray Sefo being there and donating his time to coach and work with fighters in addition to the guys he has brought in. I feel like I was able to bring a spark and a little bit of leadership to an already amazing environment.
“It’s been growing and growing but it’s definitely been a team effort. I’m very proud that I’ve been able to be a part of it and help them spearhead things. But there is no way I could do all of this by myself. We have some amazing guys who are coming in and helping build things up. We really have that true team feel here and we are going to keep that going.”
On that particular Tuesday night, the practice has long since ended and Follis is readying a group of jiu-jitsu practitioners to take the mat. Maynard nods to Miesha Tate—who would go on to defeat Sara McMann three weeks later and put herself back into title contention—and Bryan Caraway as they make their way toward the exit and Nelson is rolling out the new material in his work-in-progress stand-up comedy routine. Anyone familiar with the TUF 10 winner knows he’s sharp in the wit department, but as it turns out Nelson also has some comedy chops as well.
He drops two of his pre-fashioned punchlines that garner legitimate laughs from the small crowd gathered around him. From the smile he throws back, it is clear Nelson is already thinking about life outside of being punched in the face. But until that day comes, he’s more than willing to hand out some well-timed punishment of his own.
Following his improv set on the practice floor, Nelson exchanges pleasantries with other fighters working nearby and asks a few of the bigger fighters if they are going to be around in two weeks when he gets back from Florida. He is going down to train at American Top Team for a week with his close friend Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal and wants to know who will be around to put in work when he returns.
He has a fight coming up with Alistair Overeem at UFC 185 in March and is going to make sure his camp has no lack of big-bodied heavy hitters for him to line up against.
On the way out, one more pass is made to see if Follis has had the time to remember what the word renaissance means, and he simply shrugs it off and smiles. Two seconds later he’s back to coaching the fighters on his mat with full-steam intensity. On the way out of the gym, Follis‘ voice booms:
“I don’t want to see anyone stop until that buzzer sounds.”
He may be throwing out the same words, but he’ll be damned if they don’t mean something new every time.
Duane Finley is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com