Issue 090

July 2012

Working a fighter’s corner is one of the most responsible jobs in sport. Fighters Only provides you with some valuable tips from the top.

To a professional fighter, no man is more important in his or her life than their head coach, or chief second. He’s the rock that all careers are built upon and having a great coach in your corner is a prerequisite for success. 

Working as a cornerman is big business in fight sports, not least in the UFC where being a chief second can provide you with a steady income and also see you travel the globe. But, despite how many hours you may have spent watching MMA from the comfort of your sofa, being a genuinely successful head coach is one of the toughest jobs in the world.

You’re the guy who has to have all of the answers. You’re the guy a fighter turns to in adversity, triumph and defeat. You’ve got to be a father, a brother, a manager and a fairy godmother to your athletes… And we’ve not even scraped the surface on all the other responsibilities you have to juggle; like fight camp prep, scheduling, safeguarding facilities, finding sparring, as well as negotiating with promoters, managers and sponsors. When you think about it, the actual fight is the easy part – isn’t it?

Fighters Only caught up with three of the most exciting coaches in mixed martial arts to get their take on working the corner on the biggest stage, and if they had any tips for those currently working small hall shows on how best to prepare fighters, both inside and outside the ring.

Eric Del Fierro is the head coach at Alliance MMA in Chula Vista, California, and was the most successful coach in the UFC in 2011, thanks to a succession of winning performances led by UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and light heavyweight prospects Phil Davis and Alexander Gustafsson. 

Georges St Pierre’s head coach and jiu-jitsu black belt Firas Zahabi also boasts an array of insane talent at his gym, Tristar, in Montreal, Canada. Along with the UFC welterweight champ he works with shooting stars such as Rory MacDonald, Stephen Thompson, Francis Carmont and John Makdessi, to name but a few.

And Ricky Lundell has rapidly become one of the most sought-after grappling coaches in the sport. His work with Frank Mir, Joe Lauzon and Dan Hardy has paved the way for a legion of UFC fighters to join the booming stable of the 25-year-old from Utah – who was the youngest North American in history to be awarded a Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt back when he was 19 years old.

“The job of a head coach or cornerman starts months out from the fight, it’s got to,” says Lundell. “Everything from that first day of camp is building towards that one night, that one moment. Naturally, we are constantly working on techniques and fitness, but we are also working on visualization and movement. 

“For the full eight or 10 weeks of a fight camp, we’re practicing moving the opponent the way we want them to move. It’s about cage awareness and maneuvering the opponent into our corner so to ensure we can be most effective in the actual fight.

“We also work a lot on call-outs too, that the other guy won’t understand. And also call-ups, that only my fighter will understand. So you’re calling for one thing, but actually setting up another. It’s all a part of the process.”

Once the big night and bright lights arrive, however, that’s when the chief second really has to go to work. There’s no set routine or plan to ensure a coach can get his fighter into the zone when it matters most, as Del Fierro reveals, every fighter has different buttons that need pressing.

He says: “Certain guys like to warm up for one or two hours while others like to do just one five-minute round, and then they’re ready to fight. Same goes for the pre-fight hype and going out with a game plan. It’s just about rehearsing what we are going to do and drilling it time and again. Everybody is different so you just can’t make predictions on how things are going to play out.

“I, myself, have little rituals that I like to go through to get myself prepared. I make sure that I go over my checklist about our opponent, and what I know about my own fighter. And I make sure he’s going out there with the right information in order to perform to the best of his ability.

“But for the most part we just try to stay relaxed as possible. Until we know it’s an hour until fight time, when the fighter’s hands start getting wrapped, only then do we start going mentally back and forth and going back through the visualization that we’ve been working on throughout the camp. We already know what we need to do, how we need to approach the fight, that’s well rehearsed. So an hour before the fight we go from just being relaxed to going over those areas once again.” 

Del Fierro too likes to take the opportunity to review the calls that he may be using in the fight with his fighter. “This is the time that I go over what calls I may make in the corner. Game plans can be quite flexible and by that I mean that you have to prepare to change them during the fight, but we don’t do that in the moment. Every possible outcome is rehearsed, so we also go over some of the changes I may call for in a fight, and ways that the fighter is going to acknowledge those calls. 

“I need to know that he’s received that information. It’s like if I ask him to put his right hand up, and he doesn’t put it up right away, then I need to know some other way that he’s heard me and that he’s going to do that. At this point you’re still trying to ease those nerves, but it’s also a time to start cranking that adrenaline up, too. Once his hands are wrapped we can start hitting pads – and we’ll keep talking through things. Then it’s time to fight.”

And whilst the cage door closing limits the input from the corner, it’s at this point when a true elite-level coach proves himself. The information being fed through the fence can be imperative to what is happening inside it. Lundell was in the corner the night Mir got caught by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, yet amazingly managed to recover enough to pull off a submission victory.

“Frank Mir’s fight with Nogueira was an unbelievably crazy fight,” Lundell recalls. “I remember being cage side and seeing them trading punches and then Frank getting clipped. And as a coach on the sidelines, it’s a very scary moment when your fighter gets clipped, because you don’t actually know how much information you are saying is feeding back to him. He goes into fight or flight mode and will either fall back or shoot a shot and go forward. 

“He got clipped, but then Frank had an unbelievable career-changing moment. In the past he’s not been able to recover from that kind of adversity, so he got caught and was falling and I remember screaming, ‘Shoot!’ And Frank shot instead of falling back. In fact, earlier that night, Tito got clipped by Nogueria’s brother but fell backwards and tried to play the guard and he got pounded out. But Frank went the other way.

“After he shot, we were asking him to drive to his feet, that’s when Nogueira dropped down for the choke, and Frank flipped right over in that choke. That was something else that we’d been working on backstage, to prevent his guillotines and anaconda chokes. Frank followed the roll-through and was on his side, looking right at me. I asked him to step back, which he did, and then the kimura came from there.”

The advice delivered that night, perhaps well rehearsed in camp, was all reactionary, however. Unlike the method in proving information in between rounds. Coaches get just one minute inside the Octagon to rehydrate, compose and advise fighters – whilst also allowing cutmen the opportunity to do their job as well. It’s an art that only comes with experience.

“Inside of the cage, once the doors open up, and you set a stool down and look him in the eye, I think a lot of trainers actually overwhelm their fighter at this point,” says Lundell. “Everything is crazy around you, so you have to be calm. If your fighter has spent the round on his back, then he’s going to be frustrated. Or if he was on top and he got the knockdown but he didn’t manage to finish, then he might also be frustrated. Or, he may even feel too good, he may be a little too confident and cocky. You need to deal with that.

“Another thing to avoid is immediately speaking to the fighter. You should never just rush in and start barking information; ‘You need to do this,’ or ‘You’ve got to do that,’ and ‘This was wrong, and that was wrong.’ They don’t know what you’re saying, they’ve got one minute. They’re tired, they’re trying to think. And that right there is the number-one rookie mistake of cornering.” 

Firas Zahabi agrees: “Once you get him to your men in the corner, don’t give him more than one or two instructions. Don’t keep adding more and more. Anything else and he’s not even hearing you. And make sure your fighter catches his breath before you start talking to him because otherwise he’s not even listening.

“The number-one thing is don’t panic. If your fighter’s too calm, rile him up. If he’s too riled up, calm him down. Most of the time, err on the side of calming your fighter down because most fighters are over-hyped, they’re too nervous. But, once in a while you’ll get a guy who’s really laid back and just letting the fight slip away because that’s his rhythm. Then, you might want to rile him up.”

Keeping things simple tops Del Fierro’s list also. “I really don’t do a lot of talking in between rounds. My instructions are pretty simple. As soon as I get into the cage I always have my guys take three deep breaths, to slow their breathing down and then I always tell them whether they won or lost the round. Then I give them a couple of simple instructions to adjust as I see fit.

“Sometimes there are two of us in the corner. The other coach will then often get 30 seconds in of his own input, too. But other than that, I just make sure they’re listening to what we are saying during the fight from cageside. I try to keep it simple in between rounds and that they regroup and understand were we stand on the points.”

 However, Lundell insists, the most important aspect of a mid-round rally is the feedback from the fighter himself. Without confirmation that he’s capable of delivering a game plan, the greatest tactics in the world are useless.

“What you must do is give him a couple of seconds to sit down, compose himself and then offer him a drink of water. When he’s had his seconds, then you come in and ask, ‘How are you feeling?’ This is when you are getting some crucial information from him. This information is crucial when it comes to the fight,” Lundell says. 

“If you just jump in there without asking if he’s OK, then the rest of the minute is wasted as regards to being a coach. If you’re screaming at the guy to do this and do that, and shoot for this and put this combination of punches together, then the next thing you’re back on the outside of the cage. What if your athlete broke his hand in the last round, but you never gave him the opportunity to tell you that. Now all your advice is worthless.

“He might have kicked a shin with his inside left kick and now he can’t use that any more. But you’ve just told him that kick is key to him winning the fight, then there’s nothing on it anymore. What needs to happen is a discussion, between fighter and coach, first on, ‘How are you doing, how are you feeling and is there anything I need to know?’… Then after that, you give him some positive reinforcement. Talk him through where we are at in the fight. And then the very last thing you say to him will be the only thing that he remembers. So whatever it is that’s the most important thing.

“So as you walk away, you say, ‘Dan, what I need now is a right hand, left hook, right off the bell.’ The only thing Dan will remember as we walk out is that he’s going to throw a right-hand, left-hook. Or I would say, ‘Dan, keep doing what you are doing with those doubles but from now on I need you to lock your hands at the butt and elevate.’ Then he’s ready to go.”