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Ex-UFC star Diego Sanchez opens up about his ‘dangerous’ dealings with ‘sociopathic ex-hitman’ Joshua Fabia

Ex-UFC star Diego Sanchez reveals 'dangerous' dealings with 'sociopathic ex-hitman' Joshua Fabia Diego Sanchez is finally opening up about the man he says manipulated him and effectively killed his UFC career….

Diego Sanchez is finally opening up about the man he says manipulated him and effectively killed his UFC career.

After struggling to find his way into the win column, Sanchez left longtime gym Jackson Wink MMA to begin working with a man named Joshua Fabia. At the time, nobody had any idea who Fabia was or how he managed to hook himself up with Sanchez. Described as “an accomplished athlete, healer, and trainer,” Fabia was best known for running an institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico known as the School of Self-Awareness. There, he supposedly taught everything from self-defense to meditation to… Human rights?

It didn’t take long for fight fans and those close to Sanchez to recognize that Fabia was a clear fraud who had absolutely no idea what he was doing. Sanchez lost two of his last three bouts under the UFC banner before the promotion released him after expressing concerns over his mental health.

Sanchez has since split from Fabia but is just now opening up about his tumultuous relationship with the self-help conman via a video released on his Instagram.

“Everyone knows how my UFC career came to a halting crash in the end,” Sanchez said. “For the past two years, I have been running from a very traumatic experience. Words cannot even explain how traumatizing this was. It involves a very evil man that manipulated, blackmailed, extorted me, and eventually put an end to my UFC career.

“I have been dealing with this psychopath for 3-4 years and it was so evil and dark that there was no other option. Either he was going to kill me, or I was going to kill him. I chose to take the good path. I said I don’t care about money. Money will come. God will provide through his riches and glory everything that I need in my life, but if I kill this guy, I’m gonna have to go to prison and I’m going to miss the last seven years of my daughter’s childhood.”

Diego Sanchez claims Joshua Fabia worked for the cartel and is involved in witchcraft

“I’m dealing with a very unstable, mentally unstable sociopathic, psychopath,” Sanchez continued. “That’s basically the best way I could put it. You are dealing with a Charlie Manson-like mind where he is so far gone that it makes him unstable and dangerous.”

“The manipulation that was put on me was also that he is an ex-hitman, an ex-contract worker for a cartel. So much darkness on this guy that it put me in a state of fear I was worried about the safety of not only my life, but also my daughter, my mother, and even my daughter’s mother. This guy was completely psycho. He was participating in witchcraft, and a lot of people want to say that it’s mumbo jumbo, but Witchcraft is real. It’s in the bible and it’s very real in this world that we live in.

“This man was incarnating some very powerful demons to do the work that he was doing to bring me against my lord and savior Jesus Christ. In a very vulnerable moment in my life, this man stepped in and basically destroyed me.”

Diego Sanchez attempted to restart his career, taking a fight under the Eagle FC banner against Kevin Lee in 2022. ‘The Nightmare’ came up short via unanimous decision. He then tried his hand at bare-knuckle boxing, signing a one-off deal with the BKFC and debuting at the promotion’s third-annual KnuckleMania event in February 2023. Again, Sanchez lost the bout, this time via doctor’s stoppage in the fourth round.

He has not competed since.

Fabia Claims UFC Sabotaged Paulo Costa In Leadup To Adesanya Fight

Controversial MMA manager Joshua Fabia has an interesting take on why Paulo Costa didn’t perform up to par against Israel Adesanya. Costa fell to Adesanya in his first career middleweight title shot at UFC 253 via TKO. He was outpointed from start to finish as Adesanya won his second successful title defense as middleweight champion….

Continue Reading Fabia Claims UFC Sabotaged Paulo Costa In Leadup To Adesanya Fight at MMA News.

Controversial MMA manager Joshua Fabia has an interesting take on why Paulo Costa didn’t perform up to par against Israel Adesanya.

Costa fell to Adesanya in his first career middleweight title shot at UFC 253 via TKO. He was outpointed from start to finish as Adesanya won his second successful title defense as middleweight champion.

After the fight, Costa pointed to a night of drinking wine before the fight as the main reason for his poor performance. But Costa explained that he did it to reduce stress the night before the biggest fight of his life.

During a recent interview with Talkin’ MMA, Fabia gave his side of the story as to why Costa drank wine to go to sleep the night before UFC 253.

“Here’s Paulo Costa drinking two bottles of wine to go to sleep. Nobody’s asking: Why was it hard to go to sleep?” Fabia said of Costa’s post-fight claims. “And I’ll tell you why. The W hotel is shaped like a curve. On the inside of the curve of the building, is a race track in Abu Dhabi. From probably Formula 1, to supercars, to all this crazy stuff, does this race track. And it’s for very wealthy people, it’s not like Joe Blow is down there. What happens is the night before the fight, the fucking race track is going until like 3:00 in the morning. The noise didn’t start until like 10:00, but it went until 3 or 4:00 in the morning. It was insane.

UFC Fight Night Paulo Costa post fight interview — Paulo Costa

“People don’t understand that on the other side of the world, they’re on quite a bit of a different schedule. They stay up a lot later. That whole time, now there’s a lot of noise. So you got this hotel that’s shaped like a C, and what happened was there’s a bunch of fighters on the inside of the C, which is on the side of the track. Where the track is just blasting into you. Well, that was the side that Diego and I were on, that’s the side that all the Brazilians were on. The Brazilians were underneath us. So, I can guarantee that Israel Adesanya was on the other side of the building.”

Fabia went on to accuse the UFC of sabotaging Costa by putting him on the side of the hotel where it was harder to ignore noise.

“If I don’t want you to win, I don’t want you to get a good night’s sleep. With boxing, there’s an A-side and a B-side, MMA has a similar thing but it’s not just out in the open. You know who is supposed to lose because they do a media campaign two months before shitting on this guy.”

Costa most recently fought against Marvin Vettori last year, losing via unanimous decision in a light heavyweight bout. Despite his previous struggles with weight cutting, he remains adamant about a return to the UFC at middleweight.

Costa will need to go on another winning streak to get back into the middleweight title picture. As Adesanya gets ready to face Jared Cannonier later this year, Costa is looking to eventually redeem himself and earn UFC gold.

Do you think we’ll see Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa fight in a rematch?

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Fabia: UFC Moved “Scared” Serra Out Of Hotel After Abu Dhabi Exchange

Joshua Fabia, the former coach of Diego Sanchez, has recalled his 2020 interaction with Matt Serra, claiming the former UFC champion was “scared.” Coaches are often in and out of the headlines, whether for credit they receive for their efforts, such as Trevor Wittman’s striking development of Kamaru Usman, or criticism of their corner work,…

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Joshua Fabia, the former coach of Diego Sanchez, has recalled his 2020 interaction with Matt Serra, claiming the former UFC champion was “scared.”

Coaches are often in and out of the headlines, whether for credit they receive for their efforts, such as Trevor Wittman’s striking development of Kamaru Usman, or criticism of their corner work, hark back to the reaction to Jim West’s approach with Aspen Ladd last year. However, not many have received as much negative press as Fabia.

The founder of the ‘School of Self-Awareness’ coached Sanchez, victor of first season of The Ultimate Fighter, during his final years on MMA’s biggest stage. While a host of interactions and moments shone a bad light on Fabia and his partnership with “The Nightmare,” perhaps the most memorable featured UFC Hall of Famer Serra.

In September, Fabia was in Abu Dhabi ahead of Sanchez’s fight with Jake Matthews at UFC 253. While the focus should’ve been on the welterweight veteran’s upcoming bout, Fabia made his way to the headlines after approaching Serra in the hotel, appearing to have a gripe with how “The Terror” referred to him during an interview with Sanchez.

Thanks to the quick-thinking of Din Thomas, who was eating breakfast with Serra, the moment was captured, posted on social media, and later included in the next episode of Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight.

Now, following a bitter split with Sanchez, Fabia has spoken about his time in the UFC space and reflected on a number of incidents, including his run-in with Serra.

During an interview with Talkin’ MMA, the controversial former coach accused the UFC of manipulating the footage in order to make him look bad.

“Let’s go to the facts. You watch the video, there’s not one piece of that video (that is) out without it being controlled and directed, meaning they’e not letting you hear the full conversation, they’re not showing you unedited footage,” claimed Fabia. “They’ve gotta roll subtitles and roll over the sound, and tell you what’s going on. Well, that’s interesting.”

Discussing where his grudge with Serra originated from, Fabia recalled an interview Sanchez had with the former welterweight titleholder. Perhaps not doing much to improve the attention-seeking reputation some in the community placed on him, Fabia explained that his anger derived from the fact Serra wouldn’t say his name or discuss his school.

“All that’s really happening is, for a year before this, Diego had interviews, mandatorily by the UFC, he had to do an interview with Matt Serra, and this was before the Michel Pereira fight in Albuquerque,” recalled Fabia. “Basically, Diego is trying to talk about things about School of Self (Awareness), and Matt Serra isn’t hearing it. Diego’s saying my name, Diego’s saying School of Self, and Matt Serra just keeps saying, ‘Yeah, your cornerman.’ So he won’t say my f*cking name in the interview.

“So you wanna use my fighter for the content, the fighter’s trying to give you content, you don’t like the content, so now you’re shaping it on the show? That’s what I have a problem with,” asserted Fabia. “I have a problem with—you don’t wanna say coach, you don’t wanna say my name, you don’t wanna say what Diego’s learning, but you wanna slander me and use the show to talk sh*t and belittle me.”

Fabia: Serra & Thomas Didn’t Do Sh*t

While the viral video saw most fans and fighters praise Serra for how he handled himself after being randomly approached at his table, Fabia believes only one man lost the exchange, and doesn’t think that was him.

While physical aggression or escalation never looked on the cards, Fabia cited the fact that neither Serra nor Thomas stood up and ‘did sh*t’ as evidence that the pair were “scared.” The New Mexico native also claimed that the UFC moved Serra out of the hotel on Fight Island following the interaction.

“It’s laughable in my world. Nobody came to save Matt Serra, Matt Serra didn’t stand up and wanna do something, and six foot something Din Thomas didn’t do sh*t but hold the f*cking phone,” noted Fabia. “I’m quite aware of who was scared there, I’m quite aware of who got punked out there… I get very aware of who got punked out when Matt Serra gets moved to a different hotel and we never see him again. That’s the truth of that.”

It’s worth noting that the man Fabia believes he “scared” out of the hotel is a former MMA fighter who shared the cage with the likes of Georges St-Pierre, Frank Trigg, and BJ Penn, among other tough athletes, during a 12-year stint in the sport.

With that in mind, as well as the way Serra handled a troublemaker in a bar a few years back, many will suggest it would take a lot more than a back-and-forth with Fabia to draw fear out of “The Terror.”

What’s your take on Joshua Fabia’s belief that he “punked out” Matt Serra on Fight Island?

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Fabia Accuses UFC Of Sabotaging Sanchez: They Wanted To Retire Him

Diego Sanchez’s former coach and mentor Joshua Fabia has accused the UFC of attempting to set up a reason to retire the welterweight veteran during his latter years in the promotion. While coaches enter the spotlight and draw headlines for a number of reasons in MMA, whether for great corner work and training or for…

Continue Reading Fabia Accuses UFC Of Sabotaging Sanchez: They Wanted To Retire Him at MMA News.

Diego Sanchez’s former coach and mentor Joshua Fabia has accused the UFC of attempting to set up a reason to retire the welterweight veteran during his latter years in the promotion.

While coaches enter the spotlight and draw headlines for a number of reasons in MMA, whether for great corner work and training or for controversial corner tactics, not many have had as bizarre a presence in the sport’s limelight as the founder of the School of Self-Awareness.

Having formed a partnership with Fabia towards the back-end of his UFC career, the attitude of the MMA community towards Sanchez quickly went from one of admiration to one of concern.

As well as his cornering and training of “The Nightmare” coming under fire, Fabia was also criticized for multiple altercations he had with UFC figures. That included a verbal spat with Matt Serra and an awkward debate with the broadcast team during a fighter meeting, as well as recording conversations he had with matchmaker Sean Shelby and UFC executive Hunter Campbell.

After coming under fire for his corner work with Diego Sanchez at UFC Rio Rancho, coach Joshua Fabia explained his methods and philosophy (via @arielhelwani) pic.twitter.com/RUj1WyfiMs

— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) February 20, 2020

After Fabia clashed with several individuals prior to Sanchez’s scheduled retirement fight with Donald Cerrone last year, the TUF 1 victor was released from the UFC and his partnership with Fabia came to a bitter end. Since the end of their relationship, Fabia has accused Sanchez of taking advantage of him.

Now, in an interview with Talkin’ MMA, the former coach has shone a light on what he perceived to be wrongdoing on the part of the UFC during Sanchez’s final fights in the Octagon.

At UFC 239 in 2019, Sanchez faced Michael Chiesa. Fabia highlighted the matchup as his first experience witnessing the promotion’s attempt to create an excuse for cutting Sanchez from the roster.

Citing the veteran’s busy schedule pre-fight and speech at the Hall of Fame ceremony, Fabia claimed the UFC did what it could to ensure Sanchez got his “ass kicked” on fight night, allowing them to move closer to being able to justify a release.

“First we do the morning weigh-in… Done. So we go from there, I think we had a few hours, I got to feed him, he got to take a small nap. Then, four o’clock, we’ve gotta be back at the mobile arena for the official weigh-in,” recalled Fabia. “So we get over there, we do the official weigh-in, and then literally go back to the hotel, change, don’t have time for food, and gotta go to the Hall of Fame ceremony. That goes on till like 11:30… Then I gotta feed him, he’s high on adrenaline of giving a speech. But he didn’t get to enjoy it, he didn’t get to go out.. He had to go to the hotel room and try to get his mind right for the fight the next day.

“The play is what? Get Diego to get his ass kicked so that we can retire him and it all makes sense. That’s what the play of the UFC was,” claimed Fabia. “That’s why all the odds are against him. This is all it was. The UFC’s been trying to get rid of Diego well before I came around. The old rule was lose (three) and you’re out. Diego was always losing one, losing two… he would never lose three in a row. Because he kept getting back in the win column, they didn’t have a proper reason to cut him… So, they tried to set it up. The best weigh to do that is you get finished, you get hurt bad.”

Sanchez went on to drop a comfortable unanimous decision to Chiesa. Fabia believes that set the ball rolling for the UFC’s goal to sabotage the New Mexico native’s place on the roster.

Fabia: UFC Wouldn’t Let Sanchez Fight Maia Or Pettis

Discussing the months and years that followed the Chiesa loss, Fabia claimed that the promotion deliberately matched Sanchez up against 23 to 24-year-olds who boasted significant size and reach advantages, hoping to set “The Nightmare” on a losing streak.

“Look at what happened after Chiesa. Diego fought nothing but 23 and 24-year-olds. We’re talking 13-year difference. Guys with four to five-inch reach difference. This is just the situation that I was dealing with,” said Fabia. “And this is why nobody would give me credit for anything that I did, when Diego was supposed to get finished and hurt, and booted out of there. They just wanted to use me as the scapegoat, ‘Well that’s the reason, must be that guy.’ Not that you’re not giving him fair competition.”

After falling to defeat against Chiesa, Sanchez faced then-26-year-old Michel Pereira. Having had his hand raised following the Brazilian’s disqualification, Sanchez went on to share the cage with Jake Matthews, also aged 26 at the time, in what proved to be his final Octagon outing.

While he perhaps exaggerated the ages, later going on to describe them as ’20-year-old bucks’, Pereira and Matthews were a lot younger than the opponents Fabia and Sanchez had targeted.

According to the controversial coach, the UFC wouldn’t allow Sanchez to face either Demian Maia or Anthony Pettis, despite both verbally agreeing to face “The Nightmare.” Fabia sees that as more evidence that the UFC wanted to set up his former pupil with young opposition in order to ensure he’d be hurt and beaten.

“Diego didn’t get to fight Pettis, he didn’t get to fight Maia, and we had those fights lined up with those fighters. Somehow, someway, the UFC just wouldn’t let it happen,” Fabia continued. “Those would have been fights where you would’ve been able to see the things I was training Diego. It’s hard to see how much he’s learning when the size disadvantage, and he’s gonna look slow compared to a young 20-year-old buck.”

Now that his strange entanglement with Fabia is firmly in the rear-view mirror, Sanchez is looking to return to his old ways inside and outside the cage, something fans saw a glimpse of at Eagle FC 46 last month.

Against fellow former UFC fighter Kevin Lee, Sanchez put on an entertaining main event. While he fell short on the scorecards, “The Nightmare” certainly showed the “real Diego Sanchez,” as he put it in his post-fight interview.

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What do you make of Joshua Fabia’s accusations against the UFC?

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Sanchez: You’ll See What I Learned From “Badass Trainer” Joshua Fabia

Diego Sanchez is convinced that the world will bear witness to how much he actually learned under controversial trainer Joshua Fabia when he makes his bare-knuckle boxing debut. It has been recently reported that free agent Diego Sanchez is nearing a d…

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Diego Sanchez Trained Ass Off For Donald Cerrone Fight, Says Joshua Fabia Wanted Settlement From UFC

Diego Sanchez reflected on what was a turbulent last few months. Sanchez was set for his final UFC fight against Donald Cerrone back in May. That was until his former mentor Joshua Fabia clashed with several figures in the UFC and demanded medical records for Sanchez. Fearing that Sanchez may not be in the best […]

Diego Sanchez reflected on what was a turbulent last few months.

Sanchez was set for his final UFC fight against Donald Cerrone back in May. That was until his former mentor Joshua Fabia clashed with several figures in the UFC and demanded medical records for Sanchez.

Fearing that Sanchez may not be in the best condition to fight as a result of the request, the UFC decided to pull Sanchez from the fight and he was promptly released.

Sanchez has since parted ways with the controversial Fabia who he claimed used mental manipulation on him ever since they started working together in 2019.

He also believes Fabia was looking to get money from the promotion by getting a major settlement from the UFC — something many observers in the combat sports world suspected at the time.

“I trained my ass off for ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone,” Sanchez said recently on Instagram Live (via MMA Fighting). “I was ready to get in there and go to war, because that was going to be my last fight, my big last hurrah in the UFC. Man, I put everything into that training camp. I was ready to go and I passed all my medicals, I passed everything — I did MRI, MRA, they did everything. I’m perfectly fine. And the reason why it ended the way it did with UFC, that has other implications, that’s other stuff. That’s Joshua Fabia and f*cking with the medicals and just pushing all the wrong buttons at the UFC, working his ass off to get whatever was best for his intentions, not what was best for Diego Sanchez.

“I believe my mentor was guiding me in what was best for him. And what was best for him was to try to figure out a way to get a settlement with the UFC. He knew that if there was a major settlement with the UFC, that I was going to hook him up with half, because it was all his idea, it was all his plan. He was masterminding everything. And I made the mistake of following a mentor that I thought had a stronger connection to God than me.”

The damage was done, but Sanchez is already mending relationships. He’s already on good terms with UFC president Dana White for starters.

“Me and Dana, we’ve been talking. We’re cool,” Sanchez said. “We mended. Dana told me, ‘I got nothing but love and respect for you, Diego Sanchez.’ So in the future I’d like to meet up with Dana and give him a handshake and tell him thank you for everything that the UFC did for me, giving me all of these great opportunities. If I didn’t have the UFC, I would’ve have been able to build the brand that is the Diego Sanchez legacy.”

Fabia, meanwhile, hasn’t handled the split well and made a number of accusations about Sanchez which the latter refused to respond to.

Sanchez will dive into the Fabia chapters in more detail at some point — but certainly not on Instagram.

“I will get into it sometime,” Sanchez said. “But it ain’t gonna be free and it ain’t gonna be on Instagram, and it’s going to be with a professional that understands mental manipulation.”