MMA hour awards yesterday. One of the things that I believe Ariel Helwani does that really annoys me is he seems to play favourites to certain fighters/teams. With alot of the time the said fighters being fellow Canadians or New York residents.
So surprise surprise his choice for coach(es) of the year was Mark Henry and Ricardo Almeida.
Now I think both are good coaches with a great stable of fighters but lets look at their records over 2017. Can anyone justify this pick for me?
Magomedsharipov (2-0)- can’t have any gripe about him. Has looked awesome and a future star.
Edson Barboza (1-1) - superb flying knee win over Dariush in March but he is 1-1 for the year and just got absolutely annihalated by a fighter who hasnt fought in over a year and also nearly killed himself via weight cut (although his name is Khabib Nurmagomedov so theres nothing too shameful in that)
Marlon Moraes (2-1) Fought stellar competition but still 2 split decisions (a loss and a win) before an impressive KO of Sterling is hardly setting the world alight.
Alvarez (1-0(1) - Beat the wild Gaethje but lets be honest Poirier was going to win that fight before it got stopped.
Edgar (1-0) - IMO still one of the best P4P fighters on the planet but only fought once allbeit impressively against an untested youngster in Yair Rodriguez.
Is my gripe against his choice warranted? Or am I simply imagining this favouritism?
Really just the best stable of fighters imo but, each of those fighters seems to look a tad better in each fight, including barboza in his last fight. Those guys are all killers and Im pretty sure Anderson Franca still works with them a lot too.
So coach of the year should be based solely on fighter win/loss records?
No but based on a coach who's stable of fighters has had a great year/won belts/ shown mass improvements. I don't think any of these guys fight the bill this year as good as they all are.
Coach of the year = how many amazing already high level fighters you INHERIT
Mark Henry…who has he produced from a teenager to UFC level success?
NO ONE
Instead he has adopted amazing fighters and inherits a reputation as great coach. What a joke
Magomedsharipov - Came to NJ already a well developed world class fighter from Dagestan
Marlon Moraes - Came to NJ already a world class fighter from Brazil
Edson Barbosa - Came to NJ already a world class fighter from Brazi
Eddie Alvarez - Came to NJ already a world class fighter from Philadelphia
Magomed Bibulatov - Came to NJ already a world class fighter from Chechnya
Frankie Edgar - Was already a world class fighter from NJ
So, how does this guy get recognized as coach of the year? The real coaches are the guys who developed those skilled fighters. Not the guy who flips pizza’s.
Beezulbubba - Who do you think should be coach instead?
I would say probably Mike Brown when you think about how well some of these fighters have improved under him this year:
Santiago Ponzinibbio 3 - 0 Kod Gunnar Nelson when he was a heavy underdog and out struck -
Mike Perry. Nordine Taleb is 6 - 2 in the UFC as well so no joke.
Dustin Poirier 2-0-1 (lets be honest really 3 -0) against top level comp
Colby Covington 2-0 Beat both Dong Hyun Kim and Demian Maia in enemy territory. Was practically unknown until this year (although he has gathered attention through more than just fighting to be fair but the results speak for themselves)
Then there’s the champs:
Amanda Nunes 1 - 0
Kyoji Horiguchi 5 - 0
and I know Joanna lost her belt but still she was on course for being named the best womens fihter of al time at one point in the year. It’s hard to not pick Mike Brown to be fair.
I’m not sure who Holoway and Medieros coach is either but they deserve an honourable mention too.