Mo, who came into pro MMA a highly decorated wrestler in 2008, ended five of his first seven fights by knockout, and his boxing has continued to improve. However, in the past Mo would mix his boxing with his wrestling and it led him winning 10 of his first 11 fights, including the Strikeforce light heavyweight title. But he seems to have fallen in love so much with his hands, that he’s gotten away from his wrestling a bit and Coach Mayweather, who at least partially blames himself, talked about that:
“I believe me myself probably got Mo in too much in the mindset of a boxer, cause I mean he’s been doing so well with boxing, but wrestling his is strength. But as of late since he came to me his boxing has got really well. I’m pretty sure he’s still, if not the best, one of the best boxers in MMA, but I think he just lost sight of the fact that he’s a world class wrestler. That in a sense could be a reason why things happened the way they did. Actually honestly he did say right before the punch came he was getting ready to take the guy down because he said he could sense it himself that he wasn’t as effective as he wanted to be so he was gonna take the guy down, but things happened so fast he never got that chance.”
Coach Mayweather went on to say that he told Mo not to apologize to him for anything and he’s not defined by what happened that night but how he comes back from a loss like this.
And when asked what they plan to do moving forward, Coach Mayweather said working on keeping their hands up is definitely on the list, but also focusing more on an “MMA mindset” as opposed to relying too much on a “boxing mindset”:
“The plans aren’t really going change that much, other than the fact of course we’re going to work more on keeping our hands up, and be more in the mindset of MMA than boxing. I talked to Mo a little bit after the fight and I told him I don’t want you to get caught up in the mindset of boxing. I said you may be the best boxer in MMA, or at least one of the best boxers in MMA, but at the same time it’s totally different. I mean, you have a guy that over 200 pounds with 4 ounce gloves on. Anything can happen. And of course, like I said, with his strength being wrestling maybe this whole situation could have been avoided but hindsight is 20/20.”
[…] Boxing Coach Jeff Mayweather talks King Mo’s KO loss at Bellator 90 *VIDEO* […]