Have you ever sat down with your team? How many of those moments do you guys have where you guys talk about these things and what life after fighting is like a- and what is it like to kinda experience a show like that? Because I, I gotta imagine it, it's difficult for us, it's gotta be difficult for you.

Yeah, I think that's just, uh, the kinda the dark side reality of, of not only MMA, but combat sports in general.

Um, and then what life is like after that once that's taken away from you, you know? And, and I think people have to start understanding that while you're in this career, a lot of these guys, like Jay, was very smart in understanding his pivot and what he wanted to do when he got out.

So once he was done with the sport, he had something to fall back on immediately.

Whereas a lot of fighters that I know, they don't give themselves that, that exit plan or that e- that out, and once something is over, I think that's when they have a hard time of finding who and what they are o- or where they're gonna fit into society once again, you know? Um, and we saw that a lot with Phil.

I think that was the hard part with him, his, his identity was the New York badass and, and this MMA fighter and this character, and that gets stripped away and taken away from you, not only, uh, skill-wise, but mentally, his...

And, and I think it put him in a, into a spiral.

Can you talk about, uh, the effects you feel maybe you guys have had on him and the effects that maybe he's had on your gym?

But you know the behind the scenes, so that's why I'm asking.

Yeah.

And then it was...

After the Derek Lewis fight, he started training full-time at Extreme.

And then we, as a gym, were just helping him.

So I started cornering him for the Junior Dos Santos fight.

I was approached by Markel for the Cain Velasquez fight.

What's making it work? Do you think what makes you a coach that's working at a high level?

Oh,

100%.

Speed, size.

And then I think the thing for me is because I went Division I first, and then I left to go.

Where did you go? I was at Reno.

But I think the difference for me was, you know, back then there was no transfer portal, so you had to move down.

So at Dixie, thankfully, we were one of the schools, only small schools in the country that gave scholarships in junior college.

When you get in there with a wrestler at that Cal Division I college, all-American type, you should be scared.

What's been the difference?

Honestly, I just think his, his mental side of things, to be honest.

Like, I, I, I think he's, he's always been committed, right? Like, he's...

And he's been a world champion in the past, but he'll, you know, he'll, he'll tell you, like, he, he's out, he's, you know, he's not partying, but he's out hanging out and, you know, you know, doing the extracurricular things.

But now, especially after the Makaya fight, I feel like everything is dialed into focusing on being a world champion.

And, you know, being around Francis and being around guys that have been in the gym that have, have realized that full potential and seeing that firsthand and what it takes, I think it's truly helped him a lot.

And just really narrowing down everything that he does, right? Like, I, I tell guys, "When you go to the grocery store, bring a shopping list," right? If you go to the store without a list, you're just buying shit you don't need and walking around aimlessly.

Mm.

In short, in a tight little verbal package, can I ask what was the game plan? What did you come up with in order to try to be the first ones to beat Khamzat?

Well, it, it's not what I came up with.

It's...

We lean heavily on Sean, right? It's Sean is the game plan.

Sean is the style that I think a lot of times you can overthink a game plan.

Um, but you allow your fighter to be who he is and what he is, but also kind of try to dictate what Khamzat's game plan's gonna be versus that particular style.

The biggest thing for us was just owning the geography, making sure we weren't putting our back against the cage and inciting the take down.

And then I didn't like that in the immediate aftermath, the narrative was, "I was just trying to sell a fight." As someone who's been in the game for a long time, how do you feel about that?

Eric, did the media and the fans overblow the little rift that you and Strickland had about a year ago, and who made the first move in repairing it?

No, I think, I think that, that criticism was, was just, you know? Um, you know, you guys know me.

You guys have known me for over 20 years.

I think I try to...

I, I, I w- went with the football approach, um, when I needed to more protect my guy in that moment.

Um, you know, on a personal level, you know, I was going through a lot in my life.

My dad was battling prostate cancer, you know, my daughter was doing, um, you know, all these competitions, so I was missing a lot of stuff at home.

But w- what do you personally wanna see? More MMA? Back to boxing? How would you like to, I guess, finish out the great career he's had?

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, the most iconic women's MMA fighter in the history of women's fighting in MMA, Gina Cross! No! Are you kidding

me? The queen is back! Netflix! The queen is back! Netflix! Come on! Stop playing with me! Stop playing with me! Jesus, Eric! Come on, Eric! Eric, Nick's here! No! Come on man.

First ever sanctioned women's fight

So like, but if you swap to

me, I will bring your brand up.

You got to try it when you go home.

Old English.

Go get a gallon of petrol.

Oh, really?

It was...

Yeah, yeah.

Man, we just needed to communicate better and, and obviously, um, I think for me, on my end, was, was some of the injuries that he was dealing with and, you know, the obvious staph infection, the shoulder injury.

Um, and then, you know, just not really being a part of the, that, that process and communication.

Um, and then I, you know, I have to understand that, like, you know, these guys are making a, a lot of money, um, and his decision was his decision, and I need to be able to, to understand and support that to the best of my abilities.

Um, and what we just kinda took away from it is we just, yeah, gotta be better at our communication process and understanding what our expectations are for one another.

What were you thinking going into it?

You see like 200 bodies at Extreme Couture.

Yeah.

And I think that's something that we do really well at Navigating is that we have so many great coaches.

We are, we're not clicky.

Like I'm able to leave and know that Dennis is going to do a phenomenal job and coach the way that he wants the gym to be ran in that moment.

Nate or Ray or whoever it may be.

we're all our own individual coaches, but we all still follow that same standard.

It's a complete game

Before I let you go, can you tell me one of the most valuable things you've learned from the Bang Muay Thai system as you've coached some of the top level talent in the UFC? and

ideologies to be able to to coach under a standard where it's like man i have a resource in coach duane where i'm able to grow these individuals but also have a creative mindset behind it and i think that is what really the the stands out in the arts when you say mma the mixed martial art the art side of things is is the the creativity behind the the beholder And having those freedoms, but also under a standard of what Dwayne sets for us, I think is very important, too, because it's a roadmap, if you

when I was

helping Aljo, I knew I wasn't going to go out there and travel.

So a lot of the drills that we ran, I just was trying to make him understand what routes TJ was going to have off of certain things.

So, like, hey, if TJ does this setup, then this route, this is his next route combination or this is what he likes to do off of these things.

So we set it up more as a drill base and a scenario base rather than, like, hey, here's a combo or a called combo.

But moreover, like, here's what you have to watch out for in these

want to kind of break down camp for people at home, not just EGA's camp, but what it takes for kind of a UFC fighter in today's time right now with how competitive these divisions are what it takes because then I want to hear TJ's opinion on that.

Sure.

The one thing as a coach that's such a luxury is having a guy like Dan Ige that you don't have to really coach the small intangibles.

Those things are already covered by what he does as a person.

So I think that allows us to work on things that are a little bit more deep into our repertoire, if you will.

You don't have to worry about his weight, what he's eating, stuff like that.

That's always a relief.

No,

Can I ask what was the game plan?

Well, there was a lot of things that I think that we did well in the first fight that we could build on.

And some of those things were, you know, was when Drikus shot on us, we were leaving our hips behind.

So we wanted to get away from leaning and leaving our hips there for Drikus to be able to take us down pretty easily.

But if we did get taken down, there were some opportunities for us to be able to hit the switch and get on top.

If you go back and watch the Brad Tavares fight, Brad was able to get on top and utilize some ground and pound and ride Drikus a little bit, get some control time.

So it wasn't necessarily for us to wrestle or try to shoot on Drikus, but it was that opportunity.

So what happens now for you and Sean? You give him a week or so, you sit down and you kind of just have an honest and open conversation.