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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
"AKA is one of the biggest and best. I call camps like [AKA] and Greg Jackson's, 'super camps.' They have all the best guys in the world. That's what I'm saying. You can't have all the best guys in the world beating the living s*** out of each other every day. You can't do it. These guys have to have camps built around them where guys are working with them, not trying to hurt them... The response from the trainers has been good. Listen, Javier Mendez said, 'If Cain isn't fighting, nobody's getting paid. I'm not getting paid. Cain isn't getting paid. The UFC isn't making money to pay Cain. It's not good for anybody.' So it's awesome that a guy like Javier gets it. There's no ego involved. He wants to do what's right by his fighters.
...Injuries are going to happen. You're going to have injuries but you have to be so careful. The question becomes with Khabib [Nurmagomedov], did he do all his therapy that he was supposed to do on his knee after surgery? Did he do all the right things? We're starting to get our ducks in a row and we're going to start fixing this... The NFL has proven it. They've done these studies. The NFL isn't hitting every day like they used to. They're playing on Sunday. That's it. You have to have some sparring in there, but these guys are doing way too much damage to their fighters inside the gym."
-In an interview with Laaficion (via MMAWeekly.com), UFC President Dana White continues to give his thoughts on injuries in MMA and his problems with the way certain camps do things (transcribed by David St. Martin at MMAFighting.com).
Penick's Analysis: There are certainly things that can be improved in the training front, and some things that have to be improved to bring the performance level in the sport up another notch. Some go with the "iron sharpens iron" approach, but that doesn't always seem to be the case. Of course, the UFC doesn't pay their top fighters enough to host a dedicated camp to themselves where they're paying training partners to be there the way that happens in boxing. That's a whole other issue here that Dana White doesn't address. That said, the UFC plans to start bringing injured fighters in to their own facility to work on their recovery, and maybe that's something that will work for them. That's far from a guarantee, of course, but they clearly feel they need to do something more here to address the issue, and that's coming in the near future.
[Dana White art by Travis Beaven (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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