ATT founder Dan Lambert: Blackzilians founder Glenn Robinson is ‘pathetic’
Dan Lambert: “How often are you going to get some millionaire mark who is going to write you a bunch of checks, just so he can take credit for where you are in the sport?”
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Hotel executive Dan Lambert founded ATT with the great Ricardo Liborio in 2001. Since that time they have built one of the great fight teams in the sport.
In a recent interview for MMAjunkie, Lambert details his greatest dislike in the sport. Basically Lambert dislikes #1. Blackzilians owner Glenn Robinson, and #2. Getting jabbed in the eye with a white hot samurai sword tip, in that order.
“The wrong way to do it is Glenn Robinson,” said Lambert. “You can’t point to a model of doing things the wrong way better than him.
“His wife takes fitness classes at our gym. He would come to our gym and sit on his ass and watch her take fitness classes, because that’s basically the extent of his physical capabilities inside of a gym.
“So he’s sitting there and looking around and thinking ‘Wow that’s pretty cool I’d look good having my own gym and my own fighters. I don’t know anything about the business or the industry or the sport, but I’ve got a lot of money so I’ll go quietly and I’ll offer all these guys money to leave and come to my gym and start one with me.’
“And then I’ll get really creating and I’ll go to the owner of the gym and I’ll say ‘Hey I’m opening up a strength and conditioning center down the street. How about you send your guys down there to train with me and I’ll help you guys.'”
“Didn’t take long to figure out where he was coming from. The answer was ‘no.’ So he came up with a plan, wrote his checks to some guys, and he had them leave the gym, and he had them reach out to some other gyms that were successful, and made them the same offer, and their team was born.
“To do that on day one rather than put in the time is pathetic. And the only thing that’s more pathetic than doing that on day one is on day two hiring a publicist to go out and flood the MMA media with stories about how great you are, and these false narratives about all you do for your guys and how you run the team. It’s bulls—, it’s pathetic, I don’t like the guy.
“I don’t begrudge the guys who were at my gym for leaving, because it was a great opportunity. How often are you going to get some millionaire mark who is going to write you a bunch of checks, just so he can take credit for where you are in the sport?
“I get it. I think they should have gone about it differently. I think they should have come and looked the guys who helped them for all those years straight in the eye and said ‘I got a great offer, I gotta take it.’ We would have shaken their hands and said ;’Good luck.’
“Instead they were quiet and recruited guys to leave. I don’t really like that. I’m not going to cheer for those guys when they fight. But my feelings are towards Glenn, not towards those guys.”
The Ultimate Fighter 21 debuts on 22 April on FOX Sports 1. Lambert’s ATT will be going head to head with Robinson’s Blackzilians, with a $500,000 prize on the line.