Rockhold coach: Bisping is very dangerous

AKA founder and head coach Javier Mendez appeared recently on Submission Radio and discussed UFC heavyweight champion Luke Rockhold vs. Michael Bisping at UFC 199: Rockhold vs. Bisping 2 on June 4, 2016 at The Forum in Inglewood, California.

Bisping got the shot on short notice, when Chris Weidman was incapacitated by a neck injury.

Man, hands down Bisping is the preferred option,” said Mendez. “Hands down. There’s history there, he’s earned it. None of the other guys have earned it. They haven’t. Let’s face it, let’s be real. Okay? They haven’t earn it. Bisping earned the opportunity. So Jacare is out, Bisping has earned it. I mean, look what he’s done, come on. I don’t care what anybody says, he beat Anderson Silva. Okay? He deserves it. He deserves to be with that. And you know what? I’m happy for him. He gets an opportunity to go for what he got into the business to do, to be a UFC champion. So who else deserves it? You talked about…who else has done what he’s done? And I also look at it this way, who could build a fight? Who could build a fight better than him?

Obviously I see it going our way, because you know, that’s what we want. So I see it our way. But I do realize that we have a very dangerous individual in Bisping, that has nothing to lose, feels no pressure on him, so he’s going to go out and let it go. He’s going to go out and let it go. Hopefully he screws up, makes a technical error that Luke can capitalize early, and then hopefully it will be a short night. But you know, I always expect a long night and I’m in for the five rounds.

“And that’s what I’m expecting, a five-round tactical type fight. I don’t look at it as a war, because Bisping is not going to stand and trade with anybody. That’s never been his style. So this is more of a tactical type fight. But it will be an outside, inside fight type thing. And I’m just going to keep my hats on for that. Because he has gotten better, and you know, this is his one shot, dude. We can’t look at the old guys. This is not that guy; this is a different person. You guys have been around the game long enough to know that when you start thinking it’s the same old guy, a new guy shows up and he cleans your clock. So Luke won’t be making that mistake. Bisping is going to be taken very serious.

Mendez also discussed the steps gyms can take to lessen the chance of injury.

I think it’s a combination of everything,” said the coach. “It’s a combination of paying attention to what’s going on – like we are doing also. We have to minimize a lot of what we do because this sport is very demanding for the guys. So we have to do a lot, a lot, a lot of work. All these coaches that are having big teams need to really analyze everything and start looking at things, very simple little things that I started doing about a year and a half ago.

“Like, I ask my guys, you know, ‘hey, how are you doing?’ You know, ‘you having any problems going on, like girlfriend problems? Anything? Not enough sleep last night? Any little injury you guys may have that I need to be made aware of?’ And all those things are all making a big difference on whether I allow them to spar or not.

“And then also, I’m encouraging more sparring like only one day a week, you know, and the rest of the week is just working situational stuff. You know, mitt work and just set up types of technique phase, instead of really going out there live, going the whole time. You know, in boxing, which is where primarily I started my training, it’s ok to box three times a week when you’re getting ready for a fight. And there’s not hardly any injuries at all, ever. I never had to pull out of a fight cause of an injury. You never got injured – and we were sparring all the time.

“But MMA is such a different animal. I mean, you got the grappling – which there’s a lot of injuries that happen there. In boxing – very minimal, but injuries happen there too. Kickboxing – same thing. And you got wrestling – a lot of injuries happen there. So in MMA, you’re doing so many sports, so they require you to take care of your body more. And I think it’s still a new, evolving sport that we’re all still learning how to deal with it. I’m sure Chris is thinking obviously ‘what can I do to make it slow down and look at what I can do better,’ but obviously we all do.