Once again, an Ultimate Fighting Championship headliner has been scrapped due to fighters being injured in training. First former heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez pulled out of the main event of the UFC’s always hard hitting Super Bowl weekend show, and then current heavyweight champ Fabricio Werdum opting to nurse his own nagging injuries over facing contender Stipe Miocic, who demanded a title shot immediately after knocking out Andrei Arlovski in his last performance at UFC 195 and was quickly penciled in as Velasquez’s replacement before Vai Cavalo called the whole thing off.
Of the many who have been highly critical of fighters who they perceive to have training methods that make them more injury prone then they have to be is UFC head honcho Dana White. Always a man with something to say and never in the mood to edit his speech, White spoke back in April 2015 about the importance of a healthy Cain Velasquez to the heavyweight division, as well as his opinion on AKA’s training methods and their impact on the frequency of injuries to the fighters representing the San Jose fight camp.
The conversation I was having with [AKA founder and head coach] Javier Mendez is that we gotta start training these guys differently in the gym. These guys gotta start having a lot less contact when it comes to sparring… You have to have some sparring in there, but these guys are doing way too much damage to their fighters inside the gym.”
Jeff Warsaw is the former executive editor of Long Island MMA Magazine, professional combat sports public address announcer for several NY/NJ MMA and kickboxing promotions, and a proud one-stripe white belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under the famed Joe D’Arce. He is currently a musician, coffee enthusiast and host of the Stranger In A Strange Land podcast on YouTube.
