Morning Report: Justin Buchholz buries Urijah Faber for letting his ‘ego’ ruin Team Alpha Male

MMAfighting.com

On Saturday night at UFC 235, Cody Garbrandt was brutally knocked out for his third fight in a row after engaging in a wild brawl with Pedro Munhoz. It was an ignominious defeat for the former bantamweight champion and the latest in a string of losses for the Team Alpha Male gym. After the fight, Garbrandt released a statement saying that “it’s kill or be killed” seemingly saying that brawling was a fine tactical decision, despite the outcome. Garbrandt’s former head coach disagrees.

Justin Buchholz was the head coach of Team Alpha Male in 2016 and helped guide Garbrandt to a bantamweight title shot and victory in just one year. Since then, Buchholz was removed as head coach of Garbrandt and “No Love” has lost three in a row. Speaking yesterday with The TSN MMA Show, Buchholz put that all down to the poor coaching.

“They make a situation that is kind of simple, way too simple,” Buchholz said. “They’re like, ‘Oh, he decided to throw caution to the wind.’ Well where was that guy, where was the guy who threw caution to the wind, kill or be killed, I’m just gonna go run across the cage holding my right hand out with my hands down, where was that guy when he fought Dominick Cruz?

“. . . It’s not kill or be killed. It’s win this fight. Get the W. It just pisses me off when people say, ‘Oh he just got emotional. He just decided to do this.’ That’s all from training! That’s all from the camp. That’s all from the cues you receive from your coach.”

Buchholz was ousted as head coach of the gym by gym owner Urijah Faber before Garbrandt faced off with former TAM fighter T.J. Dillashaw. Not too long after that, Buchholz left the gym entirely and since then, Team Alpha Male has fallen on hard times, results-wise. Buchholz places the blame squarely on Faber’s shoulders and believes the results speak for themselves.

“If you think of it like football, it’s like the owner of the team got jealous of the head coach and then showed up on the field and started coaching instead of sitting back and kicking his feet up saying, ‘I started the team, I own the team, everything you do makes my shine brighter’” Buchholz said. “But some people can’t understand that because they can’t see past their own ego.

“. . . You can say whatever you want but the results speak for themselves. Cody’s only fights against top-10 opponents are Pedro Munhoz, T.J. Dillashaw, and then Dominick Cruz, and Dominick Cruz was the best out of all of them and he master-classed him but he couldn’t get past those other guys. It has a lot to do with coaching, the program, it’s all that.”

This is not the first time Faber has had an acrimonious split with a head coach. Before Buchholz, Duane Ludwig was brought in as head coach of TAM and brought with him immediate success. Not long after that, he was removed as head coach after disagreements with Faber, and champion T.J. Dillashaw along with him. At the time, Buchholz sided with Alpha Male but after being on the other side of things, he says he sees things differently. Now, Buchholz says he and Dillashaw have mended fences but he doesn’t see that happening with Faber.

“Absolutely not. I would never go back to that gym,” Buchholz said. “What I did there, I was there for 10 years. I was the first UFC fighter to fight out of Alpha Male. The social media, I did all of that. I started it from scratch. I made the Team Alpha Male Instagram, I ran that and it was the biggest team Instagram in the sport. . . The logo on all their shirts, I designed that logo. I was a huge part of that and I didn’t think that I ever, ever leave that. I thought that I was gonna die as head coach of Alpha Male but c’est la vie. Things don’t always work out the way you think they are and sometimes they turn out better for you.

“For me to ever coach Alpha Male again, that door is closed. Urijah would have to lick my boot if he wanted me to go back in that gym and even then I don’t think I’d do it.”