Mike Easton has been training with Alliance MMA for quite some time, in addition to his regular training at Team Lloyd Irvin. In the above 30 minute video “celebration” of all things Lloyd Irvin there is a section focused on Mike Easton’s (at the time) upcoming fight with T.J. Dillashaw in which Easton, while talking to his sister Nyjah, says that all of his training was done at Irvin’s.
From around the 5 minute mark of the video:
“Everything in house. Everything right here in Maryland. Don’t have to have too many guys come out, all the guys coming from our affiliate schools and I just feel strong and ready. Ready to put on a show and ready for this performance. Definitely going to see a different Mike Easton from 2013. My first fight…is in 2014. My last fight was in 2013 but it was a fight of the night with Brad Pickett. But can’t leave it to the judges hands, I plan to finish T.J. Dillashaw.”
Dillashaw ended up dominating Easton for all three rounds. Personally, I don’t understand the decision to not train with Alliance. For all the issues reported on with Irvin, he’s a very capable jiu-jitsu instructor, but I believe there isn’t the depth of talent for high level MMA fights sticking at Irvin’s only.
But what really sticks out to someone who has been as deep in the story of scandal at Team Lloyd Irvin is Easton mentioning that the training partners he worked with came from “affiliate schools.” That lends a considerable amount of credence to the talk that Irvin’s “termination” of his affiliate program was just talk and not actually more than a PR stunt.
Either way, Easton is now riding a three fight losing streak and needs to figure things out if he’s going to get his career going back in the right direction.
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