With injuries to both Luke Rockhold and Daniel Cormier leading to two main events being cancelled this month, many began to question whether their team at AKA are doing things the wrong way.
A few fighters have publicly questioned AKA’s training methods, and recent statistics also show that their camp had the highest rate of injuries in the UFC.
Daniel Cormier recently addressed some of this criticism, stating that there have already been measures done in their gym to prevent injuries.
“Guys have made changes (in AKA),” Cormier said about the criticism in a recent appearance in The MMA Hour. He also cited that Rockhold pulled out from aggravating an old injury, and that it could’ve happened to anyone. As for his injury, he says it’s not very common for fighters and he doesn’t know what really caused it.
“I promise you, when I fought the last fight, Cain and I made some changes to our training. It worked great for Cain, he looked fantastic against Travis Browne.”
As for his situation, Cormier says he didn’t like the results of this new way of training when he last fought at UFC 200.
“For me, I felt a little bit off,” he said. “I felt like I didn’t do as much as I needed to do and it really messed with me mentally. Now, I spar a lot, and I run a lot, and I train a lot. It’s the only way that I feel secure in my own mind. The biggest part of competition if knowing that I’ve done enough to fight. It’s scary if it’s the other way.
“When I fought Anderson Silva, I was worried. Like, man did I run enough? Did I put enough miles in? Did I spar enough rounds? And you don’t want to be questioning yourself. That was supposed to be Jon Jones.
“I actually had changed up my training situation, scared to get hurt, before I was going fight Jon Jones. It was a huge mistake and I didn’t like it. I’m going to go back to doing what I do. I’m going to train as hard as I can and I will hope I can make it to these fights man.”
Whether it was a result of going back to the old ways, or it really was just a freak incident, Cormier still ended up pulling out of yet another fight. Bowing out to injury for the second time this year is certainly a tough pill to swallow, but DC says no one should blame AKA and his coaching staff.
“It’s not Javier’s fault,” he stated. “This isn’t college. We’re not high-school athletes. Javier can tell me not to spar and I’ll be like, ‘Yeah sure, Jav.’ then I’ll go spar. I’ll do what I’ll do. We’re adults.
“I’m the reason I got hurt. I don’t know why. It wasn’t Javier Mendez or Bob Cook,” he said. “The decisions are mine. If I got hurt, it was my fault.”
“People always get confused. They talk about coaches. The reality is, these coaches and managers that everybody thinks are in so much control, they work for us. They’re our employees.”
Cormier says he doesn’t have a timetable for his return just yet, but is hoping to compete early next year. After competing in 3 championship fights in 2015, the 37-year-old will end up with just one non-title bout this year.
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