The former UFC middleweight champion spared no words when it came to his feelings about the ‘school of self awareness’ guru and his split with TUF 1 winner Diego Sanchez.
Diego Sanchez’s split with ‘School of Self Awareness’ guru Joshua Fabia seemed like an abrupt about-face for the working relationship between the Ultimate Fighter Season 1 winner and the man who had seemingly worked his way into every part of the now former UFC fighter’s professional life. Over the past year, Fabia turned himself into a lightning rod for public criticism, with wild claims that he was teaching Sanchez deadly martial arts techniques, and public outbursts that only served to sabotage the ‘Nightmare’’s public image.
Still, even up into the last few weeks, Sanchez seemed to be a firm supporter of Fabia’s questionable methodology, even going so far as to tell reporters that he had severed relationships with other family members of criticism of Fabia’s suspect influence in his life. That all came crashing down in a matter of days, however, when a lawyer representing Sanchez told reporters that his client and formally severed his working relationship with Fabia.
While Sanchez himself told the press that he’d be taking some time before making his own public statements, Fabia rushed to the spotlight, with claims that Sanchez had actually been taking advantage of him. He also threw some not so subtle shade at Sanchez’s lifestyle, something that fired up one of Fabia’s more vocal detractors: none other than former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping.
In a recent episode of his Believe You Me podcast, the ‘Count’ couldn’t have made his disdain for Fabia any more plain, burying the self styled martial arts instructor for his recent remarks (transcript via MMA Fighting).
“So I talked a little bit about Joshua and then Diego reached out—Which was probably Joshua Fabia, let’s be honest, because the messages never stopped,” Bisping said. “They kept coming and coming and I just ignored them because I like Diego, but Joshua Fabia can go f*ck himself. But I said that I wasn’t gonna talk about it to Diego. I was being a nice guy. Well now, Diego and Joshua Fabia parted company… but today that little pr*ck, that little assh*le Joshua Fabia that runs the School of Self Awareness—and by the way he is the least self-aware assh*le on the planet, the least self-aware, so that’s ironic—he’s now talking sh*t about Diego, not the other way around.
“He’s come out and he’s talking bad about his character, he’s saying he has substance abuse issues, he’s saying that he’s broke, he’s making out that he’s a bad father, this guy really, really went off the deep end. It’s absolutely disgusting, it’s just shocking.”
“He’s sitting there, he’s trying to be passive-aggressive, he’s talking about basically saying that [Diego’s] got a one-bedroom apartment but he’s got a child, so he’s making little connotations there about him as a father, which is disgusting,” Bisping continued. “He’s talking about substance abuse issues and if he has a problem—Again, that’s disgusting. That’s private information between them two, never gonna share that. Talking stuff about him having special education needs and things like that, I don’t know.
“What this guy did to Diego’s career and to end up losing him his job and then for him now to come out and talk all this sh*t when Diego was so loyal to him and had his back and even cut off members of his own family and lost his place in the UFC that he had for a long time. And for him to come out there, do this, so quickly as well? It just shows this guy is a real piece of sh*t.”
In his statements, Fabia claimed that he had videos proving Sanchez’s alleged drug abuse issues, evidence he’s threatened to release publicly. And also that he has proof that the Nevada State Athletic Commission asked Sanchez to throw a fight (allegations seemingly in relation to Fabia’s claim that he’d been teaching Sanchez secret ‘death moves’—something the commission then questioned Sanchez about). Moves that appear incredibly self-serving for a man who is trying to spin his relationship with Sanchez as one where he was protecting the fighter from harm. Hopefully for the former Jackson-Wink trained athlete, his split with Fabia will only mark a positive step forward in his personal and professional life.