Urijah Faber Is Who I Thought He Was.

Genki Sudo II said:
Fair enough.

But I just can't grasp for the life of me how an average at best career MMA fighter with rudimentary looking Muay Thai/Kickboxing can translate well as an apt coach. Go figure.
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? A lot of coaches haven't even competed. Good ones too.

And Duane wasn't a bad kickboxer by any stretch
 
Thong took a backseat when Bang came around (no pun), which lead to mainly Mendes and TJ changing their striking style completely, while Faber & Benavidez added stuff, but still move similarly.

Thong's been there probably close to a decade, give or take. He's held pads for Faber for thousands of hours, both know every move there through repetition. But he didn't improve Faber's striking as much as Bang did, in the cage.

That's a whole different ball game compared to hitting pads, the bag, the speed bag or doing rope drills. Being a good striking coach shows the most in sparring, and that shows in the cage.
 
Minnja said:
In a recent interview Faber said he didn't know Duane was planning on leaving and opening his own gym until he heard it from other people. He said he wanted Duane to be there for the newer guys too and implied that he mainly just trains the top guys and doesn't work too much with the newer (amateur fighters and guys just starting out?). guys.

I think people are looking too much into it with the whole "Faber is just jealous because he didn't win the belt," thing. Team Alpha Male is his product, if a coach is not committing long term then it's not in his best interest to keep him as a head coach.
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whats interesting too is duane opened a gym in denver shortly before he split to go train TAM and now it doesnt even appear to be there anymore to my knowledge. I like duane but that seems kinda flakey
 
phuk the master thong haters...

hes a BOSS with the pads
 
Brocktirement said:
why is that 'master toddy' not wearing a t-shirt while he's holding pads?

he comes across as a big show off......during ufc events he has this ridiculous sun glasses on........he just comes across as a total douche
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I agree, the guy looks like such a tryhard
 
Kirin said:
If you want to crown his ass, then crown him!

denny-green-o.gif
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Was hoping someone would post this.
 
I think it's pretty clear that Ludwig is a great striking coach, and likely a better one than Master Thong. Certainly, Faber was likely more reluctant than the other team members for Ludwig to take a major role. But he was also less likely to benefit from Ludwig's tuition due to his age, experience and personality. It's no coincidence that Chad and TJ have shown the most improvements.
 
Genki Sudo II said:
Fair enough.

But I just can't grasp for the life of me how an average at best career MMA fighter with rudimentary looking Muay Thai/Kickboxing can translate well as an apt coach. Go figure.
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It seems to me that you just don't like Dwayne, go figure. I noticed you didn't reply to my other comment, I wonder why.
 
Genki Sudo II said:
He's actually implying that Bang demanded what they (TAM) already have in themselves which was hard work and punctuality so it was redundant and silly for Bang to have set those specific ground rules as if they never had it from the get go. It seemed like an unnecessary power move.
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you are reading WAY too much into what he said.
 
pointfighter said:
Faber is an incredible fighter that I think suffers from ego issues always being so close to gold but never claiming it. Now that a lot of his crew are going beast mode under Ludwig, with TJ annihilating the guy that blapped Faber, well... he was butthurt about it. As was evident in his complete character assassination of Ludwig when asked about him leaving TAM
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If you could post of link to when Faber assassinated the character of Bam I'd like to see it. I just listened to Bam and TJ on Rogan for 3 hours and nothing about Faber and bad blood was brought up. I remember seeing a quote where Faber talked about Dwayne's passion and how sometimes it was weird, but beyond that nothing.
 
Urijah and Master T are best friends. Of course they're going to spend more time together.
 
Genki Sudo II said:
I've gotta confess I've never really delve into the training/soap opera of Team Alpha Male of late up until only recently with the Bang Ludwig/Urijah rumblings.

Apparently with the very short stint of Ludwig helming the team, I didn't see a whole lot of video coverage save for a few which did show how stern he was and also a subtle backhanded response from Urijah during his interview regarding that sternness.

Plus some conventional pairing up broken down into parts sparring from the Alpha Male members while Bang coached, I saw.

Then I fell onto some of Master Thong and Urjiah's pad work and Holy ****; that's on a different plane. Uriah and Master T has this innate synchronicity/dynamism that I've yet to see during pad work for MMA exclusively. The variety and speed of the pad work is quite a beauty to behold. (The only pad work I would actually bother to observe and be in awe for that matter because we all know how most are mundane/repetitive)

And I also realized Master T does not have the same rapport with everyone else because I've seen he how simplifies (pad work) it for the rest of the guys.

I have no idea how much Master T factored into the in fight coaching between rounds - since he's not officially a head coach - but I can now see how maybe Uriah may be the least affected by Bang's presence and now departure compared to the rest. But both are gone now and this is all water under the bridge.

I always thought the rest of TAM lacked the offensive dynamism of Urijah relatively speaking and now I've seen it in action through his pad work to back my theory.

I guess he is the "Alpha" of Team Alpha for a reason.

http://youtu.be/3b4GyD8NzWQ?t=1m21s goes straight to the pad work.

[YT]3b4GyD8NzWQ[/YT]
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You think Uriah has hands? He is a pot shot wrestler. Duane Bang understands the strategy and tactics of the stand-up game better than Uriah will ever be capable of knowing. Master T doesn't say anything in the corner, he usually lets other people speak while he focuses on doing his job, applying ice and wiping down the fighter. Uriah is from California and came from a very laid back home life. That is not Duane Bang bro. This guy takes fighting seriously, takes training seriously, and if you look at Uriah, as much as I love the guy, he has plateaued with his skill-set. He can't quite take his stand-up to the next level. He has looked great in his recent fights, but he is the Alpha male? When they already said that TJ beats everyone's ass in the gym? Plus he just won the belt that Uriah couldn't get? Beat the man silly that beat Uriah silly? Come on bro! Duane Bang speaks English as a first language. Not many people think this matters but when you're discussing intricacies and nuances of technique, Master T is going to have a hard time conveying that knowledge. Especially since anyone with an Asiatic language as a base, English is the most difficult language for them to learn.
 
Genki Sudo II said:
Fair enough.

But I just can't grasp for the life of me how an average at best career MMA fighter with rudimentary looking Muay Thai/Kickboxing can translate well as an apt coach. Go figure.
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was roach and wink both great mma fighters or great boxers? serious question, because i don't know for sure
 
Ronin Le said:
To bad looking good at padwork doesn't always translate well into fighting. It seems that TJ's stand up learned from bang really helped him defeat Barou than Uriah's stand up from tong.
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Padwork like that always reminds me of watching asian, "chop-socky", martial arts movies where it's so nicely choreographed but you know no one is actually throwing with bad intentions or getting hurt.
 
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