Jason Kutz is Raquel Pennington’s coach and he sparked some controversy over a decision he made Saturday at UFC 224. When the fourth round ended and Raquel told him she was not able to answer the bell for the fifth round he sent her back out there anyway where she was quickly finished by bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes. After the social media backlash for the decision he spoke to MMA Junkie to tell his story.
In my mind, I had it as more of a mental battle than physical battle for her going into the fifth round. And knowing her and coaching her for years, and knowing what she’s capable of, I felt if she flipped the script and did a 180 in her own mind, and just went for it, hey, you never know. I always tell her, in 10 years, yeah, you were losing the fight, but you look back at this, you look back at that moment in your life, and you would be asking yourself, what if? What if I’d went out there and something clicked and I had the best round ever and won the title? And now, she doesn’t have to do that in 10 years. She knows. I think that’s huge. I think her battle wounds from this fight, they’ll heal. But she gave her best effort that she could possibly give on that day, under those circumstances. What more as an athlete, what more as a coach, can somebody ask?
What do you think? Should he have listened to his fighter? Was he right?