With that in mind, take a look at this video, in which Kos has a casual conversation with friend and former training partner Jon Fitch, and discusses the beef with former camp American Kickboxing Academy (specifically, coach Javier Mendez) that he apparently just can’t let go of. In the video, he admits that he hopes AKA “burns to the ground” with “maybe one person” in it. Hint: Mendez is the person he’s hoping for. To be fair, Koscheck also openly admits to being a D-I-C-K dick, so at least he’s willing to man up about that whole issue.
See Javier’s response, courtesy of MMAFighting, after the jump.
(When Mendez refused to kiss Koscheck’s boo-boo and make it all better, a rivalry had officially been started.)
There are few things that are simply a given in the MMA world, and they are:
With that in mind, take a look at this video, in which Kos has a casual conversation with friend and former training partner Jon Fitch, and discusses the beef with former camp American Kickboxing Academy (specifically, coach Javier Mendez) that he apparently just can’t let go of. In the video, he admits that he hopes AKA “burns to the ground” with “maybe one person” in it. Hint: Mendez is the person he’s hoping for. To be fair, Koscheck also openly admits to being a D-I-C-K dick, so at least he’s willing to man up about that whole issue.
Javier’s response, courtesy of MMAFighting, is below.
(the question comes up at the 1:25 mark.)
“It’s who he is,” Javier states bluntly, laughing through the fact that his former student of eight years more or less just wished for him to die. At least they can agree on one thing: Josh Koscheck is a dick.
With that in mind, take a look at this video, in which Kos has a casual conversation with friend and former training partner Jon Fitch, and discusses the beef with former camp American Kickboxing Academy (specifically, coach Javier Mendez) that he apparently just can’t let go of. In the video, he admits that he hopes AKA “burns to the ground” with “maybe one person” in it. Hint: Mendez is the person he’s hoping for. To be fair, Koscheck also openly admits to being a D-I-C-K dick, so at least he’s willing to man up about that whole issue.
See Javier’s response, courtesy of MMAFighting, after the jump.
(When Mendez refused to kiss Koscheck’s boo-boo and make it all better, a rivalry had officially been started.)
There are few things that are simply a given in the MMA world, and they are:
With that in mind, take a look at this video, in which Kos has a casual conversation with friend and former training partner Jon Fitch, and discusses the beef with former camp American Kickboxing Academy (specifically, coach Javier Mendez) that he apparently just can’t let go of. In the video, he admits that he hopes AKA “burns to the ground” with “maybe one person” in it. Hint: Mendez is the person he’s hoping for. To be fair, Koscheck also openly admits to being a D-I-C-K dick, so at least he’s willing to man up about that whole issue.
Javier’s response, courtesy of MMAFighting, is below.
(the question comes up at the 1:25 mark.)
“It’s who he is,” Javier states bluntly, laughing through the fact that his former student of eight years more or less just wished for him to die. At least they can agree on one thing: Josh Koscheck is a dick.
(We dare you to look this man in the nipples eyes and call him a liar.)
A few weeks ago, you may recall that former welterweight title contender Josh Koscheck had some rather hateful things to say about his former training camp, American Kickboxing Academy, when asked about his split from the organization by Ariel Helwani. To sum it up, Kos basically called head trainer Javier Mendez a fraud, and alluded that anyone over at AKA was only successful as a result of their training partners. He also vowed to never step foot in San Jose again, unless it was to open up a competing gym, preferably placed across the street and run by White Goodman. Yeah, that’s my second Dodgeball reference today. Deal with it.
Anyway, when fellow UFC welterweight and former AKA associate Brian Ebersole caught wind of this interview, he became rather irritated by Koscheck’s insolence, and proceeded to put his whole departure in perspective when interviewed by VigilanteMMA. We’re not sure if Ebersole’s attempts to tear a new asshole where one clearly already existed may result in some sort of time warp, paradox, or black hole, but check out what he had to say:
He’s always a bit flippant and disrespectful to Helwani, but this last interview was ridiculous. Bad attempts at humor and despite the line of questioning, he brought it back to the drama/breakup he had with AKA. He went well out of his way to slander Javier Mendez and the system that AKA has built. Very disrespectful. Koscheck was not a self-made UFC star, as he’d like you to believe. There are more guys than just me that remember him punching like a girl for a few years. He’s figured it out now, and punches with power, but he didn’t do that on his own.
Join us after the jump for much, much more from this interview.
(We dare you to look this man in the nipples eyes and call him a liar.)
A few weeks ago, you may recall that former welterweight title contender Josh Koscheck had some rather hateful things to say about his former training camp, American Kickboxing Academy, when asked about his split from the organization by Ariel Helwani. To sum it up, Kos basically called head trainer Javier Mendez a fraud, and alluded that anyone over at AKA was only successful as a result of their training partners. He also vowed to never step foot in San Jose again, unless it was to open up a competing gym, preferably placed across the street and run by White Goodman. Yeah, that’s my second Dodgeball reference today. Deal with it.
Anyway, when fellow UFC welterweight and former AKA associate Brian Ebersole caught wind of this interview, he became rather irritated by Koscheck’s insolence, and proceeded to put his whole departure in perspective when interviewed by VigilanteMMA. We’re not sure if Ebersole’s attempts to tear a new asshole where one clearly already existed may result in some sort of time warp, paradox, or black hole, but check out what he had to say:
He’s always a bit flippant and disrespectful to Helwani, but this last interview was ridiculous. Bad attempts at humor and despite the line of questioning, he brought it back to the drama/breakup he had with AKA. He went well out of his way to slander Javier Mendez and the system that AKA has built. Very disrespectful. Koscheck was not a self-made UFC star, as he’d like you to believe. There are more guys than just me that remember him punching like a girl for a few years. He’s figured it out now, and punches with power, but he didn’t do that on his own.
It is a well known fact that Ebersole has been in the MMA game long enough to train at literally every gym from here to Thailand, so it’s not like his take on Koscheck’s previous skill level is a fabrication. But it doesn’t stop there, and in fact, Ebersole cites several incidents that have led him to his current assessment of the TUF 1 alumnus, the first of which occurred during one of his recent returns to the San Jose-based gym. As he recalls:
Josh came out to AKA in 2004, but he didn’t come straight out to live in San Jose. He immediately settled into Fresno, where our manager lived in a mansion, had a private jet, and set Josh up with a cozy income-earning position coaching wrestling, privately, to groups of school-kids. Being AKA’s first All-American wrestler, he seemed to have gotten the royal treatment. That’s my view, looking back. With that, Mr. Koscheck traveled into San Jose when he saw fit.
I’m not alone in thinking he’s a dick. I revisited AKA a time or two since I’d moved to Australia. The first time, I came off of a 14-hour flight and went straight to the gym. I announced that I had a fairly serious neck injury. I had a decent spar with Fitch, who held me down and beat me up, but kept a respectable speed/intensity. But Koscheck acted like I was standing in the way of him and a paycheck. And socially, he was very abrasive per usual.
Referring to Josh Koscheck as “abrasive” is like referring to Tank Abbott as “a light social drinker,” so we’ll give Ebersole his due credit for not totally unleashing on his former training partner.
And as for AKA’s current lineup of coaches, which includes such legendary names as Bob Cook and Dave Camarillo, Ebersole couldn’t help but find Koscheck’s comments to be a bit delusional:
I think AKA has some of the most talented coaches he could have asked for. Camarillo, BJJ/Judo Black belt. Javier was a world champion. Bob Cook was an undefeated MMA fighter and is widely regarded as Frank Shamrock’s best student. Jerome Turcan, who handled my striking development, is a multiple time French Savate Champion and a former K-1 Finalist. He couldn’t get good work in? It was there to be had. He mentioned that Javier coached him but that he didn’t learn anything. Really? I learn from BJJ blue belts whilst I travel the globe teaching and training. And you can’t learn from a former World Champion? That’s a curious comment, if you ask me, which you did.
If he had any problems with Javier, it’s because Javier was the only one that would conflict with him. Most of the coaches are very non-confrontational. Javier tells it how he sees it. Josh probably had a big problem anytime criticism came; and 90% of that would have come from Javier, because it was not in the nature of the other coaches. Not surprising that they butted heads. And not surprising that Kos has acted like a child in regard to his life-changing plans. Disappointing to many, no doubt. But not surprising to anyone who knows him.
I think it was pretty obvious from the start that Koscheck’s departure from AKA was much more personal than he led on, and it’s nice to hear from someone outside of the camp that this notion is probably true. Koscheck is set to take on Johny Hendricks at UFC on Fox 3 in May, but after that, who would be interested in seeing him take on Ebersole in one of those good old fashioned grudge matches the UFC loves so much? Koscheck has stated before that he thinks rankings are bullshit, so surely he’d be up for a fight against a UFC up-and-comer like Ebersole, right?
(When I open my eyes, I want to see that sign say ‘NOT an AKA affiliate.'”
If you were wondering why American Kickboxing Academy co-founder and head coach Javier Mendez wasn’t in Josh Koscheck’s corner Saturday night, it wasn’t because he had Super Bowl tickets.
Kos dropped a bombshell at the post-fight press conference that he has split from the San Jose-based camp and that he will now prepare for his future bouts in his Fresno AKA location – though he isn’t sure that he’ll keep the affiliation of the gym the same. He clarified with MMAWeekly that the decision to leave the gym was a result of a handful of slights Mendez made towards him and his teammates following losses the fighters incurred.
“This goes back from quite a bit, and history repeats itself. Whenever you have a guy for example whenever I had the loss against [Thiago] Alves and I took the fight on short notice with him, and after the fight I had a lot of friends come up to me and calling me saying ‘have you read this interview with Javier Mendez?’ and talking about me and my game plan. So I went online and I read this interview and I started to notice after all my teammates lost, it was the same thing,” Koscheck recalled. “[He’d say things like], ‘They didn’t listen to the game plan,’ — that he deferred it away from himself, and he threw us under the bus basically, saying that we didn’t listen to him and he tries to make himself look good, so it doesn’t reflect on him us losing. I’ve lost a lot of respect for Javier Mendez as a coach, as a person, because if you go back and listen to the history of the interviews of him after AKA guys have lost, the interviews he does, go back and look at the Cain Velasquez [fight], go back and look at the Josh Koscheck [fight], the other guys on that team, and see if you can find interviews where he refers to, ‘Oh I did my job,’ to make himself look good and they didn’t do theirs. That’s not a coach.”
(When I open my eyes, I want to see that sign say ‘NOT an AKA affiliate.’”
If you were wondering why American Kickboxing Academy co-founder and head coach Javier Mendez wasn’t in Josh Koscheck’s corner Saturday night, it wasn’t because he had Super Bowl tickets.
Kos dropped a bombshell at the post-fight press conference that he has split from the San Jose-based camp and that he will now prepare for his future bouts in his Fresno AKA location – though he isn’t sure that he’ll keep the affiliation of the gym the same. He clarified with MMAWeekly that the decision to leave the gym was a result of a handful of slights Mendez made towards him and his teammates following losses the fighters incurred.
“This goes back from quite a bit, and history repeats itself. Whenever you have a guy for example whenever I had the loss against [Thiago] Alves and I took the fight on short notice with him, and after the fight I had a lot of friends come up to me and calling me saying, ‘Have you read this interview with Javier Mendez?’ and talking about me and my game plan. So I went online and I read this interview and I started to notice after all my teammates lost, it was the same thing,” Koscheck recalled. “[He’d say things like], ‘They didn’t listen to the game plan,’ — that he deferred it away from himself, and he threw us under the bus basically, saying that we didn’t listen to him and he tries to make himself look good, so it doesn’t reflect on him us losing. I’ve lost a lot of respect for Javier Mendez as a coach, as a person, because if you go back and listen to the history of the interviews of him after AKA guys have lost, the interviews he does, go back and look at the Cain Velasquez [fight], go back and look at the Josh Koscheck [fight], the other guys on that team, and see if you can find interviews where he refers to, ‘Oh I did my job,’ to make himself look good and they didn’t do theirs. That’s not a coach.”
Kos says that another issue he had with Mendez is that he put getting exposure for his brand ahead of taking care of the fighters that made it a household name. Although he didn’t say it, it looks like there may have been more than meets the eye to the recent departure of longtime AKA coach Dave Camarillo, given the way he describes the atmosphere at the gym.
“There was a lot of poison going on around there and I’m really disappointed because we had a good thing going. It was a good thing and I think people’s egos got in the way. Well, not people just Javier, his ego got in the way, and too many cameras in the gym and him trying to build himself up and his brand — his AKA brand, which is fine. I understand that, but it should never take precedence over training guys. As a head coach of a gym and he says he’s the man, he’s the boss over there, he should have the responsibility to make the fighters as best as we possibly could be, but he never did that,” he maintains. “It’s because DeWayne Zinkin and Bob Cook recruited us to go there. That’s the only reason that everybody’s there, it’s not because of Javier Mendez, it’s not because of the gym AKA; it’s because of DeWayne Zinkin and Bob Cook. They built this thing. They brought the best guys in the world together. Bob Cook and Dave Camarillo they’re always responsible and they take their share of wins and losses and that’s what you’ve got to love about those guys. Bob Cook and Dave Camarillo, they’re loyal. You lose, guess what, it was all of our faults. They take the brunt of that. Javier is more concerned about the camp and looking good and who’s going to be the next guy to bring him money. I just can’t be around that anymore.”
As far as training with his former teammates like Jon Fitch, Cain Velasquez, Mike Swick, Luke Rockhold and Daniel Cormier goes, he says that they are still teammates regardless of whether or not they compete under the AKA banner or not and that they will continue to train together, just not under Mendez’s roof.
“Those guys are my brothers. They’ll be in my wedding. I know Fitch is going to have a baby soon, I’m going to go up there the day he has his baby. That’s my family. That’s my adopted family. We’ve bled together for eight years; that ain’t changing. I’m still going to train with them, but I will never step foot in AKA in San Jose again. I’m not really concerned about trying to create a camp; it’s going to happen. I get paid pretty well so I’ll pay guys to come in and train with me for a few weeks,” he says. ”If any fighters want to come train, my doors are open. I’ll give them a free place to live, and a great training atmosphere,” says Koscheck. I basically trained myself the whole last training camp. Actually more than that, it’s been the last three or four training camps, I trained myself. So it’s like, why be away from Fresno where I have two gyms I built, I have an amazing house, I have amazing family here and friends, and people that support me here. I can’t do that.
“Had I stayed there my career would only be one or two more fights. I think it affected me a lot. I knew I was going to make this announcement after the fight; I obviously wanted to win and have that opportunity to make that announcement at the press conference,” Kos explains, pointing out why he didn’t perform as well as he should have against Mike Pierce Saturday night. “I was going to do it in the Octagon. There’s a lot of emotion in this because this has been my life for eight years. Since I’ve been in the UFC and started my career training, I’ve been there and I don’t know anything different. It’s going to be a new change and a new chapter for me. New beginnings.”
Although some might assume that this development opens up the possibility of him fighting teammate Jon Fitch, Koscheck says that it still isn’t happening even if they aren’t fighting under the same affiliation.
“That ain’t ever going to happen. I’ll move up a weight class or I’ll just quit,” he says flatly. “Dana White, he’s great about it, he was joking with me at the press conference and I joked with him back and I said, ‘Good luck with that one, buddy.’ If me and Fitch became the number one contenders, if we were fighting edge to edge for the title for the number one contender [slot], then I could see why Dana would say ‘yeah you guys need to fight’ but I would probably just end up walking away from the sport. Because it doesn’t mean that much to me to fight a friend.”
Gil Martinez appeared on Mauro Ranallo’s “The MMA Show“ radio program today and the head boxing trainer and coach at Xtreme Couture dropped a bombshell about one of his highest profile students.
According to Martinez, he’s pretty sure that former number one UFC lightweight contender Gray Maynard has decided to cut ties with the Vegas gym and is planning a move to the San Francisco Bay area where he will train American Kickboxing Academy moving forward. There, Maynard will join a top-tier team that includes notables like Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, Mike Swick, Cain Velasquez, Daniel Cormier, Josh Thomson and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal.
(Plan “B”: Boy band — PicProps: MMATKO)
Gil Martinez appeared on Mauro Ranallo’s “The MMA Show“ radio program today and the head boxing trainer and coach at Xtreme Couture dropped a bombshell about one of his highest profile students.
According to Martinez, he’s pretty sure that former number one UFC lightweight contender Gray Maynard has decided to cut ties with the Vegas gym and is planning a move to the San Francisco Bay area where he will train American Kickboxing Academy moving forward. There, Maynard will join a top-tier team that includes notables like Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, Mike Swick, Cain Velasquez, Daniel Cormier, Josh Thomson and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal.
Martinez told Ranallo that he was hurt and disappointed that Gray decided to move without discussing it with his Xtreme Couture stablemates and coaches, but wishes him the best at his new gym.
Besides his recent knockout loss to Frankie Edgar, part of the reason for Maynard’s departure could be comments Martinez made about his camp for the bout. He revealed in his Fighters.com blog after the bout that he wasn’t involved as much in Maynard’s camp as he has been for previous bouts.
“In the corner I was just playing it by ear and looking for certain things since I wasn’t exactly sure of everything he had been doing since I wasn’t completely involved with his camp this time around, though I wish I had been,” he explained
Martinez also mentioned in the weeks after the fight that he didn’t agree with Gray’s decision to not train every day at Xtreme Couture for the camp. Instead, “The Bully” decided it would be best if he he rented out a gym closer to home and bring in training partners to train with so he didn’t have to travel to XC every day for the eight weeks before the bout.
Although he says that no official decision has been made by Gray, from what he is hearing, it’s all but a done deal.
Attempts to reach Maynard for comment have been unsuccessful. We’ll have more updates as we receive them.
*UPDATED at 7:30 pm ET on Monday, November 21, 2011:
Gray texted us the following statement regarding his supposed switch in camps:
“Nothing for sure yet. Just training, getting new looks. I love [Xtreme Couture], but there’s a lot to learn out there.”
So it seems that he is strongly considering a change of scenery, however he’s taking his time and putting a lot of consideration into where he’ll eventually land.
AKA co-founder Javier Mendez explained to Yahoo! Sport’s Dave Meltzer recently that he doesn’t have an opinion on his fighters fighting each other and that he doesn’t get involved in the decision making process when it comes to fights being offered to two of his guys like they have been by UFC president Dana White to Koscheck and Fitch.
“My standpoint is it is up to the fighters,” said Mendez. “I back both my fighters with whatever decision they make. If they both agree and the organizations want it, then it will happen and it’s nothing personal.
And Mendez isn’t the only one at the California gym who doesn’t bat away any suggestion of an inter-team showdown. Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix finalist Daniel Cormier has expressed an interest in facing UFC heavyweight champ and main training partner, UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez if the money is right and if it doesnt harm their friendship.
AKA co-founder Javier Mendez explained to Yahoo! Sport’s Dave Meltzer recently that he doesn’t have an opinion on his fighters fighting each other and that he doesn’t get involved in the decision making process when it comes to fights being offered to two of his guys like they have been by UFC president Dana White to Koscheck and Fitch.
“My standpoint is it is up to the fighters,” said Mendez. “I back both my fighters with whatever decision they make. If they both agree and the organizations want it, then it will happen and it’s nothing personal.
And Mendez isn’t the only one at the California gym who doesn’t bat away any suggestion of an inter-team showdown. Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix finalist Daniel Cormier has expressed an interest in facing UFC heavyweight champ and main training partner, UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez if the money is right and if it doesnt harm their friendship.
“He’s a friend,” said Cormier. “I’ve trained him for all of his recent fights. I cornered him. We face each other every day in sparring.It’ll be a very difficult fight for us to do. It will have to be worth it to us financially. We share the same coaches and the same management team. We’d have to address this as a group, with [manager] Bob Cook, Javier.”
Mendez says that if both fighters decide that there will be no hard feelings between them, then he would be okay with the heavyweight tilt going down as well if it’s offered.
“We’ll have to set up separate camps and take care of them as best we can. Daniel [Cormier] has talked about it before. Whatever Daniel wants, I’ll back 100 percent. If Cain says, ‘No,’ guess what I’m going to do? I’ll be behind Cain.”
Although he says he would fight Velasquez, Cormier says that he would much rather find a better solution for his career aspiration of one day wearing UFC gold.
“I don’t want to be just a good fighter. I want to be the best in the world. I could be in line for a championship, but if it came down to us, I’d much rather go to 205,” Cormier explains. “That would eliminate a lot of things. We have a great thing going at AKA — to avoid a lot of negatives, to avoid people having to choose sides, I’d rather move to 205, maybe beat someone and then face Jon Jones. I’d have to have that fight instead of Cain.”
Cain mentioned last month that he’d lock horns with Cormier as well, so if he gets past dos Santos and Cormier can beat Barnett, then Joe Silva could very well have his first heavyweight title defense of 2012 already in the bag.
