Joshua Fabia,
the coach of UFC veteran Diego Sanchez has been heaping praise on his fighter
after his DQ win over Michel Pereira at UFC Rio Rancho.
The 38-year-old previously of JacksonWink dropped his long-time training team during fight week at UFC 239. On the night of his fight, Sanchez had only Fabia working his corner. He would go on to take a dominant decision loss against top contender Michael Chiesa.
Since appointing Fabia as his head coach, Sanchez has come under some criticism from the MMA community for his choice of trainer. The Ultimate Fighter season one winner was on the receiving end of some unusual instructions during his last fight. Fabia’s corner work was transcribed, published and then ridiculed online, forcing Sanchez to speak out in defence of his coach.
Fabia appears to have put his foot in it again whilst discussing his fighters’ abilities with Luke Thomas. The charismatic coach claimed Sanchez has the same level of defence as legendary boxer Floyd Mayweather, he said.
“I’ll give you the critique on it, just like
everybody talking that s**t about Diego just running at his opponent. Listen
crazies, you guys are kind of like, slow it down and recognize what you’re
seeing. He was loaded to go through a flying knee, and in that moment, in the
speed of that, he recognized it was definitely going to be unhealthy to do
that. And he smothered it, had no damage, and bounced off.
“Like again, if you watch the video on Diego Sanchez’s IGTV, you will see he blocks, evades like it’s Mayweather level. It’s McGregor level. Clearly, why even McGregor, the only one with enough fight IQ to see the power in what was really happening there. Also, the only person to study movement outside of the box of ‘MMA I know everything established community. This is what is going on here man.” (Transcribed by BJPENN.com)
Do you think Diego Sanchez has Floyd Mayweather level defence?