Eddie Bravo Explains Coaching Tony Ferguson During Justin Gaethje Loss

But it pays a little bit more of a price, I think, every time you do it. Towards the end. This is the thought about Tony and the Gagey fight. That, look, I was saying it's pretty gangster, they decided to make weight anyway. But then people that, you know, like Dana said this, a couple other people said this, like, why would you do that? Doesn't make sense. When you know you're gonna have to make weight again. I talked to Tony yesterday and he said it had nothing to do with the weight. His loss had nothing to do with the weight. I'm sure he, you know, look, he fought well. Yeah. But he had to have felt something from draining his body just a couple weeks ago. It turned into a way. We know it didn't help. I don't mean to interrupt you. We know it didn't help him. Right, right, right. We know that. Exactly. We know it didn't help him. Justin just fought an awesome fight, man. That's true, too. That's true, too. Because this and the thing, it's like Tony took an inhuman amount of punishment. But his cardio is so much better than everyone else's. Even when it's getting rocked. To a ridiculous extent. You, everyone knows, like you know better than anybody how hard it is to breathe when you're getting hurt. If you're getting hurt and you're stunned, that's when your cardio goes out the window. Through the shitter. People are out, when you get clipped, that drains your energy more than anything. Your cardio goes through the window. His cardio never went away. He was fine. He's already training. He was training today. He was dancing in the fucking, dancing in the emergency room. He's ready to go back. He's taking this loss. It gave me the chills listening to him talk last night. We're talking, I'm like, his champ shit only, that's in his losses, too. Because he's like, listen, he goes, everybody in the world is suffering financially. And I got to go in there and make a whole bunch of money. And my family's secure. I lost technically, but I won in life. I'm winning. So I'm just ready to go back and do it again. He seriously feels great. I'm going to ask you this without you getting upset at me. When I was watching it, and I don't know Tony like you do, and I'll see you, you're one of the greatest Jiu-Jitsu coaches all the time. But when I was watching it in the fourth or definitely in the fifth, I would have thrown it in the towel. That crossed my mind. But I would have never done it. But I thought, man, it was, it was, I know you. Listen, listen, listen, listen. I have never, I have never been a head MMA coach ever in my life. Never wanted to be, never wanted to be. And I never, even to this day, I've never been. That's not me. I'm not Trevor Whitman. That guy's amazing. I'm not a Greg Jackson, Duke Rufus. That's a, that's, that's a whole nother level head coach. That's the guy that should be talking to the fighter that's sitting down. I never, I'm the wide receiver coach. I'm the guy that just throws in shit on the side. Like, you know, especially in a stand up, in a stand up fight, I shouldn't have been might because I knew this was going to be a stand up fight. If the fight was going to go to the ground, if it was a Khabib fight, yeah, maybe there's going to be a lot of groundwork. Yeah. Maybe it makes sense for television to mic me. But whenever Mike and me up, Mike, I'm just there for emotional support because it's going to be a stand up war. Tony never, he hasn't had a takedown in five years. He never takes anybody down. The last takedown he got was Gleason DeBow. Think about that. He doesn't take, he goes out there and you know what he does when it fight, when the fight ends up on the ground, it's like from a scramble. Someone took him down. Kevin Lee takes him down. That's where his jujitsu comes in. We knew it was going to, we were preparing for Khabib this whole time, which he was going to try to stay on his feet, obviously, and, and, and do this thing. And all of a sudden, two weeks before the fight, when it was April 18th, we get the opposite of Khabib. Such a dangerous fight. And not only the opposite in strategy, but the opposite and probably the heaviest handed, lightweight, maybe ever. The most dangerous matchup for Tony. The most dangerous matchup. He lights people up with one shot. So not even for one second did the camp think, oh, we got this one in the bag from day one, from day one. So hold on. Let me finish this real quick. Let me get this off. My chest. So the whole time we're training for a certain strategy. Now we got two weeks in an ounce. Justin Gagee. Would the smart thing be to do a totally changed Tony style or say, fuck it. Let's let's try to outbox this guy. Do Tony. Tony wanted to fucking strike. Tony was like, I'm going to go out there and outbox him. That was the plan. Nobody said 100% it was going to work. You know what I mean? So and it was weird. It was everything about that. That whole fight was weird. And you get there and there's nobody in the arena. And it's super quiet. I've been to about 150 UFCs. I've cornered a bunch of fighters in the UFC. It was the weirdest thing. And one of the weirdest things was in between the first round and second round, they only allowed one coaching, right? And they said, who's it going to be? And I was the first one to say, not me. Like I don't want to be the I'm not the MMA head coach. It's got to be the striking coach that goes in there. Everybody agreed for sure. Like I'm not going to be. It's always got to be the striking coach, the head coach, the guy that talks to him. I'm just the guy that offers suggestions. I've never been never wanted to be never tried to be. So Billy or Rashad, those are Rashad. Rashad Holloway. Yeah, Rashad Holloway is his boxing coach and Billy is his Muay Thai coach. So one of them went in. I'm on the outside. I had nothing to say. All I could say was Tony, you're looking good. That's it. Did either of them consider throwing the towel? No, we didn't talk about it. I just had it in my head. I didn't talk about it, but this would happen. So then the second and then the first round in my eyes at the at the event, I thought, OK, that could win either way. OK, second round at the very end with two seconds left, he clips adjusting. So after two rounds, I'm thinking, OK, now it's going to start to turn around. So at that point, after the second round, he knocked him down. If he would have 30 seconds, who knows what the what would happen? Who knows? But then at that point now it's the third round like, OK, man, maybe he's going to turn it around like he always does. So at that point, it was we weren't like thinking, OK, we got to take him down or anything like that. But after that fourth round, it was looking like, oh, shit. And right when the bell rang after the fourth round, Rashad turns around and goes, Eddie, get in there. And I'm like, I wasn't ready for it, man. I wasn't ready to walk in there. So I walked in there going, what the fuck am I? I'm not an MMA head coach. This is the fourth round. He's hurt. And plus, dude, my car got broken into last week. They stole my glasses. I always I need my glasses. I'm pretty blind. So I didn't really I didn't realize how how cut up he was until I walked up to him like, OK, I'm supposed to give him advice. This wide receiver coach like I'm the wrong. It was a mistake for me to go in there. Not a bad idea for you to go. It was a mistake. I was like at this point, I thought maybe that's pulling guard or doing some eminari rolls works in the beginning when it's fresh like the way Ryan Hall got you J. Penn. Remember Ryan Hall, Japan. It was early. He went for eminari roll. He was fresh. If if we're going to do something like that, we have to strategize for that the whole camp, not just like, hey, so I'm in there going at this point, he's hurt. He's cut up. A lot of things are swirling through my head and I'm thinking, oh, my God, what the hell? What is the best advice here? It's like, what is this quote? I need help here. I froze. And it's so quiet. It's so quiet. You know, you can smell it. Usually you're like, dude, you got to take this motherfucker down. You know, but it's so quiet. It's so goddamn quiet that everyone's like, you know, you're talking lower. It was just so weird. You're all self-conscious. Yeah. Brian Callan just walked through the room. Brian Callan, just please let him finish because he's in the middle of describing. I'm so into Tony Ferguson. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. No, keep going. So I walk in. The first thing I notice is he's cut up more than I can see from the corner. From my vantage point, I couldn't tell you had a big cut under his right eye. And at that point, that's my brother, man. That's my brother. I'm thinking like, fuck. Like maybe the best thing to do is stay on the outside for the fifth round and just get through this with no more damage. I was thinking maybe because if he tries to shoot now and he's really tired and he's he's hurt, it could be he could catch a knee coming in. I'm thinking what what kind of advice? And then I just said, you might want to try a new menari. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I froze. I didn't. I don't think you froze because that's not that advice is everything else. I've never been in that situation ever before in my life. And I don't want to be. I'm not the guy for that. I don't think he throws. I'm not the guy for that. I shouldn't have been in there. I'm always on the side when I'm in the corner. I'm always on the side. You know what I mean? Just a little little emotional support. I'm not going to the most important thing for a fighter. I've been in this business getting paid in the MMA business since 2000. I've seen fighters come and go. I work for the UFC for eight years, been to about 150 UFCs. I've seen everybody come and go. I know my role. I do. I give myself enough credit. I'm not Duke Rufus. You're not giving yourself enough credit. Guys, they're on another level. I am just hey, if he takes you down, you get that overhook and fucking hit that triangle. But this is me. That's it. But you're a fantastic jujitsu coach, but I think you're also smart enough to know where your strengths lie and it's in the jujitsu. That's a good thing, man. That's a healthy thing. But you for sure have an understanding of how to coach someone in MMA. The thing is, there's like levels, right? There's like for us, a hobby, Matt Hume level, the Wizards of Tech. Yes, that's not me. Yeah, those are different guys. But those guys aren't anyone that comes to jujitsu. No, they're not. They're not. No, but yeah, but that's the point. It's like to be in both of them are very talented on the ground, by the way. Matt Hume was a wizard. Amazing. Amazing. But he was also a legit striker. Very much so. I strike worse than, you know. Hey, when Matt Hume was on top of his game. Oh, he was amazing. He was an incredible fighter. He was way ahead of his time. Amazing. But if I want if it went to the ground, he had straight technical hell married trying to finish the guy. Eddie would be my guy. Of course. Of course. Now give yourself no credit. Those guys, the thing about both those guys that we just know the whole game, they know the whole game for us is very good. It's trying to be the best and very good on the ground. I don't know if you guys remember last year at PFL, the first round fighters fight twice in the same night. Remember that? Yes. And Vinny Magalayas pulled guard in both of his fights early in the fight and tapped the guys out real quick. Yeah, of course. Right. Real quick. Real quick. So good. But but you set it up and you work on it. You know, we took Tony's a striker, man. He wants to take your head off. You know what I mean? Such a beast. So and then what happened in Vinny's fight in the final of the tournament? He got really tired. You know, he was really tired at the end. He was trying to pull guard at the end, but he didn't have the energy to pull guard. You know what I'm saying? It's a lot in the final set it up. It's like a takedown. You had to set it up. Had he fought earlier that night in the finals? No, no, no. He liked the the finals were like months later. And there's only one fight. So he's just tired in that fight and that fight. And he was trying to pull guard. He couldn't strike the guy. He was tired and there was no he was trying to pull guard, but he wasn't even close. He'd like land on his butt with no clench. And I forget who he fights, but he would just walk away. Look at this. He's got his back. This is it. This is it. This is it. Oh, man. 20 seconds. Tony's story is not over. There's so many good fucking man. One win. One win. He's right there. Well, how about this? Well, you have to take into consideration the fact that it didn't really get a full chance to game plan for a guy as dangerous as Justin and prepare for him. There's going to be a rematch eventually. There'll be a rematch and the training camp is going to be different. But but here's the one thing we could look back at. This is a blessing in disguise in one way, because originally Tony and Connor was the fight. But then Connor loses to Kabib. And then now it's Tony and and Kabib was the fight. Now, since they're both coming off losses right now, Tony and Kabib makes the most sense right now. Can you imagine that? You mean Tony and Connor? Oh, yeah. No, Connor's come out. I know. Tony and Connor. I'm sorry. No, Connor's coming off a win cowboy. Oh, that's right. That's right. Damn. OK. OK. But still, it still makes sense. He did lose. It makes sense. It makes sense because it's hard to pitch a Connor Kabib fight right now. It's it's like it's hard to pitch. So he's right there. Gage is right there. But depending on what Kabib wants to do and his dad and bad health, if he's out for a little longer, then he can do Gage E. Connor. That's true. How about how about Gage E. And Tony Connor saying, Oh, my God, Super Bowl. Oh, my God. People sleep. People say it's perfect. That's amazing. Come on. How crazy about New Year's Eve or something? You know, you're also forgetting to be ridiculous. Oh, my God. I'll jack off to it right now. And then the winners of the winner of each fight. Yeah. Amazing car. It's Tony Tony versus four man tournament and Gage versus Kabib. I'm sure everybody's head to explode worldwide. We're simultaneously. There's some other some other dark horses for Tony like Dustin Poirier is right there. Charles. Yeah. Charles O'Loughborough. Charles O'Loughborough presses me as much as anybody to do. When he was trying to leave, I was like, this is crazy. His striking's gotten so much better down staying on the outside.