American Kickboxing Academy is notorious for producing champions and having those champions pull out of fights due to injury. Cain Velasquez is equally considered one of the greatest heavyweights of all time and one of the most likely to not make it to the Octagon on fight day. He reinforced this unfortunate legend after pulling out of various fights, including a February heavyweight title fight rematch with Fabricio Werdum. While Daniel Cormier has only recently pulled out of a fight, his light heavyweight title fight with Jon Jones in April, AKA’s Josh Thomson and others carry that injury stigma with them as much as the team’s winning pedigree.
Velasquez is now right around the corner from 34 years old, and Cormier turned 37 in March. The hard sparring sessions and intense weightlifting gauntlets take a toll on a fighter’s body, even if it leads to great success in the cage.
Speaking to MMA Junkie, Cormier and Velasquez admitted that it was time to adjust their methods.
“A lot of people don’t see behind the scenes what we do to get ready for fights,” Velasquez said. “They just see fight day, and we go out there and fight. But there’s a lot of hard work that needs to happen beforehand, and we’ve been criticized for sparring too hard. But hey, that’s the best way to get ready for a fight, we think, and it’s proven.”
Of course, sparring for some teams is the bread and butter of training, while other champs, like Robbie Lawler, rarely spar. Some don’t want to take the damage in training, and now this tweet from DC before Rockhold was knocked out by Michael Bisping is catching flak.
Took 7 years but I am officially a beast. Today I dropped @LukeRockhold :) feeling like a 2 division champ lol jk :)
— Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) May 9, 2016
So perhaps the training isn’t all that light, but it is different.
“Right after Cain got hurt, he talked to me and he goes, ‘We don’t want to say “old,” but us experienced guys, maybe we should reevaluate our training a little bit,’” Cormier told MMAjunkie. “It made me take a hard look at myself, as it did Cain. We both had to take a hard look at ourselves, as we had to prepare for these new fights. It was a blessing in disguise.”
The newfangled AKA will get a good look at UFC 200 when Cain Velasquez takes on Travis Browne and Daniel Cormier finally rematches Jon Jones for the undisputed light heavyweight belt. It’ll be interesting to see the results.
(Via MMA Junkie)