Coach’s blog – Things I’ve seen over the years

When you travel to fight shows as much as I do, you see a lot of crazy stuff. One time, I was at a fight show in Ky. when I saw an overweight, out of shape fighter stick his head out of the ring and empty the contents of his stomach on a judge that was sitting ringside.

I and most of the people at the show laughed our asses off. I think the only two people not laughing were the fighter who was disqualified for puking and the judge who was covered in vomit.

This isn’t the only time I’ve seen this. My friend Ray Elbe posted a video of himself on YouTube where he is in a grappling match and he puked on his opponents head. Here is the video of Ray’s match http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7qTY1c0zd0

I was at a show in New Orleans La. when a fighter’s cup fell out because he wasn’t wearing a jock but instead he just shoved his cup into his Fruit of the Looms.

The ref reached down and picked up the cup and in one smooth motion threw the cup out into the crowd where a nicely dressed middle aged woman jumped up and caught it thinking it was a t-shirt being thrown out into the crowd.

As soon as she caught it she realized what it was and screeched as she threw it away from her. I have no idea what the fighter was thinking, not having a jock on, or why the ref picked up the damn thing and threw it into the crowd.

I’ve seen so many fighters walk out to the cage or ring and then when the ref asked about their cup or mouth piece it turned out the fighter didn’t even have one of them on.

MMA really doesn’t require much gear. All you need is a pair of shorts, cup, mouth piece and gloves. So how do you forget your cup or mouth piece?

We’ve all seen the videos of guys crapping themselves during MMA and Grappling matches. I think in these instances it’s guys changing their diets before a fight that’s causing the mud slides.

I’ve had so many first time fighters tell me that they ate clean the day before and the day of the fight.  These guys have never eaten clean in their entire lives.

If you change your diet your body will react. I tell my guys to not change a thing, act as if it’s just a normal day and eat as you would when you train.

If you eat a Big Mac three hours before every class then do the same on fight day.  Don’t change your routine the day of the fight or you will be this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knjpsjbQftk.

MMA, Grappling, and Muay Thai matches are a lot of fun to go to but when you’ve been to hundreds of shows the only ones that start to stand out in your mind are the ones that are out of the normal and seeing a guy get puked on, shit on, or de-shorted tend to stand out.

So thank you to all the Ray Elbes and Judo poopy pants guys for giving a jaded coach something to laugh about.

By: Ron Dayley

Ron Dayley is a trainer, manager, promoter, and owner of SSF Submission Academy. He is the author of ProMMA.info’s popular “Coach’s blog” which is published about once a week or sometimes more often if he needs to vent. You can find previous editions of “Coach’s blog” in our archives.