Outside Source
Sean Strickland’s lackluster outing at UFC 312, where he lost a lopsided decision to Dricus du Plessis, led to his head coach Eric Nicksick airing some grievances publicly in the days following the fight.
Breaking down the fight where Strickland just never really seemed to get going offensively, and things went from bad to worse after he suffered a broken nose in the fourth round, Nicksick called it a “very underwhelming performance” and that it was an “uninspiring effort” from his fighter. In return, Strickland released a video detailing a litany of physical issues he was dealing with leading up to UFC 312 while adding that he still considers Nicksick a friend but he is “probably not” returning to corner him again for future fights.
As a retired UFC fighter, and now full-time coach running his own gym, Matt Brown has lived through both sides of a situation like this and really the biggest problem comes down to how this was all handled publicly rather than behind closed doors.
“First and foremost, we have no idea what’s going on behind the scenes,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “There could be a million different things that we’re basing all this off a couple of paragraphs. Who knows.
“That’s all we can base it off of, [the way] it looks. It’s unfortunate. I don’t think you should criticize your fighter publicly.”
While Strickland certainly isn’t immune to criticism, Brown feels like it could have been handled better from a coach’s perspective by speaking out so publicly about what went wrong.
Brown believes there’s a level of trust maintained between a coach and fighter and breaking that — even if Nicksick was 100 percent correct with his analysis — can feel like a betrayal.
“A coach-athlete relationship is like boyfriend/girlfriend,” Brown explained. “You’ve got their back until you don’t when it’s all said and done. More like a marriage I guess. It’s to the death. You’ve got their back, and you’re there for them. You’re not fighting for them. All you’re doing is giving your belief on what you think they need to do. They’re trusting you with that belief.
“It doesn’t mean they’re going to do it, or they have to do it, or they’re bad if they don’t do it, or there’s something wrong if they don’t do it. You don’t know what they’re going through. You don’t know what it’s like standing in front of someone trying to kill you, especially guys that have never fought.”
Brown admits that he has a different reaction towards coaches who have never fought before offering an opinion, because that experience is a huge part of truly understanding what fighters go through.
“I try not to be overly critical,” Brown said. “I like guys like Eric Nicksick, but if you’ve never fought, you’re literally just giving an opinion. I think someone who’s fought, their opinion goes a lot farther. But it’s still an opinion. It’s like if you want to teach someone how to drive a car and you’ve never driven a car before. Do you really want to learn from that person? My 14-year-old son could tell you how to drive a car. He could teach someone how to drive a car, but do you want to learn from him? It doesn’t really make sense.
“I try not to be too much of a hater for guys who have never fought, because they can bring a lot of value to a camp, also. But if you’re going to sit there and act like your opinion is so good, and your belief of what they did was so good, I hope you’ve at least fought before so you can say ‘OK, I did that and I believe that you should.’”
When it comes to Strickland’s situation specifically, Brown sympathizes with why he might be upset that his coach criticized his performance so publicly after what was undoubtedly one of the worst nights of his life losing a UFC title fight.
From his own experience spending 15 years in the UFC, Brown obviously won and lost fights, but he always appreciated that his coaches had his back no matter what happened.
“That’s the whole thing with this entire conversation, we’re assuming a lot of things here, but if that is the case, I understand Strickland getting mad about it. 100 percent,” Brown said. “I’ve had terrible performances, and my coaches never said a word about it outside of to me. We talk about it.
“I’ve seen it a million times — well I haven’t lost a million fights — but you lose a fight and my coaches still had my back the next week or whatever. Somebody’s talking shit online, and they’re defending me. I personally, I appreciate that. It’s like when you sign up as a coach what your role is and what you’re doing.”
When it comes to coaches who have never fought before, Brown understands there’s a lot of knowledge and information that can be passed along but it’s still tough to truly know what’s happening in the cage if you’ve never experienced it.
“The thing is if you’ve never done it, I feel like you can only speak so much about it,” Brown said. “You might have a great opinion. Going back to the same analogy, my son could teach you how to drive. He could tell you to put your foot on the pedal, go easy on the brake, put it in drive, both hands on the wheel, but how does he know how to tell you to do when there’s a drunk driver next to you, and they’re swerving all over the road? Or you’re on ice? Or it’s a crazy rainstorm?
“It’s like when shit’s easy, it’s easy to say what to do. It’s when shit gets hard, and that’s why it blows my mind that there’s so many coaches out there that haven’t fought.”
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This article first appeared at MMA Fighting – All Posts
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