MMA coach Duke Roufus calls for culture shift in stopping fights: ‘It’s your job to protect the fighter’

There have been two fights that modified veteran MMA coach Duke Roufus’ perspective on stopping fights.

Earlier in his profession, Roufus, the longtime head coach and proprietor of Roufusport, admitted to giving his fighters an excessive amount of leeway in deciding whether or not they had been nonetheless aggressive in a struggle. That modified when two of his most well-known college students, ex-UFC light-weight champ Anthony Pettis and Paul Felder, had been critically injured in bouts.

“Anthony broke his orbital towards [Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 185], and we saved attempting to have a track and dance and a prayer that he pulled one thing out. And what? He ended up getting thrashed for a lot of rounds, which was detrimental to his profession at the moment,” Roufus revealed in an interview with MMA on SiriusXM.

“Paul Felder, when he broke his arm towards Mike Perry [at UFC 226], ought to have stopped that struggle, and I discovered rather a lot from these experiences, once I needed to dwell with the remorse of that, and it’s one thing I convey now into my teaching ability set is empathy, sympathy.”

These traits will be blunted, Roufus stated, as a result of the stakes of a struggle within the UFC are so excessive that fighters’ corners don’t really feel empowered to make choices that might harm their profession.

“The title is so onerous to get in MMA that typically our ardour for glory is simply too robust for our wits and humanity in doing what’s the best factor,” he stated.

Longtime MMA coach John Hackleman stated as a lot whereas reflecting on his try and name off the UFC 283 principal occasion between Jamahal Hill and Glover Teixeira. Though glad that Teixeira didn’t take extra harm after he tried to have the bout referred to as off, he stated he’d seen sufficient to cease the bout after the third spherical. The prospect of watching his fighters harm was one of many causes he resolved by no means to nook one other struggle.

Hill vs. Teixeira and one other brutal UFC 283 bout between Jessica Andrade and Lauren Murphy reignited the dialogue about fighter security and a nook’s duty to guard their fighter.

Roufus stated he gained a brand new perspective not solely from his errors, however his expertise as an expert fighter. That may be missing, he stated, in greater gyms the place fighters get much less 1-1 time with their coaches, who might not put as a lot time into educating defensive techniques.

“What I’ve obtained going for me is I’ve gotten my ass kicked,” Roufus stated. “I’ve been destroyed, been wrecked in fights. I do know what it looks like. I feel there’s quite a lot of coaches who’ve had some success teaching, however they’ve by no means gotten their coronary heart torn out and destroyed within the ring like a few of these children are getting, and I feel we’ve obtained to shift that tradition. It’s your job to guard the fighter.”

Try Roufus’ interview beneath.